By NNN-KUNA
Baghdad : Leaders of the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and the Islamic Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council have signed a charter of a new political alliance.
Political circles termed the new alliance “the moderates front.” President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, President of Iraq’s Kurdistan region Masoud Barzani and Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahi announced the alliance in a joint press conference here Thursday.
Talks between the four parties forming the Iraqi National Assembly’s (parliament) majority started Thursday morning.
Informed sources said that Talabani, Al-Maliki, Barzani and Abdul-Mahdi, in addition to acting head of the Supreme Council, Ammar Al-Hakim, held the meeting to arrange for announcing their alliance, aimed at enhancing the political process in the country.
“Our alliance is for the success of the political process and it is open for all,” said Talabani, who represented the Kurdistan Alliance — the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan — in the meeting.
He rejected terming the alliance a “front.” “We do not want to call it a front or a bloc but it is an agreement among the four powers that are committed to their former alliances and working within their frameworks,” Talabani said.
He noted that they had had talks with Tareq Al-Hashemi and leaders of the Iraqi Islamic Party to join the alliance, but they said “our (their) present circumstances would not allow it.”
“They blessed our alliance and wished us good luck,” he said.
“This new alliance is for supporting the political process … and the basic lists and blocs. It is open for all those who believe in the political process and the necessity of pushing it ahead,” Al-Maliki told the conference.