Sunni bloc says it will return to Iraq cabinet

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

BAGHDAD (AFP) — Iraq's main Sunni Arab parliamentary bloc is set to rejoin the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki after boycotting it for nearly a year, in a boost for reconciliation efforts in the war-torn country.

Saleem Abdallah, MP and spokesman of the National Concord Front, said his group had given a list of new candidates for five of the six ministerial posts which it previously held in Maliki's cabinet.

"The prime minister has accepted the names of the candidates," Abdallah told AFP.

Last August the Sunni bloc, which has 44 MPs in the 275-member parliament, pulled its ministers from the cabinet in protest at what it viewed as the monopolisation of power by the other factions in government -- the Shiites and Kurds. One of the six...