New Iraqi president pledges to consolidate national unity

   Profile: Jalal Talabani, Iraqi new president

   BAGHDAD, April 6 (Xinhuanet) -- The Iraqi National Assembly (parliament) chose on Wednesday Jalal al-Talabani, a veteran Kurdish leader, as the country's new president for the transitional period.

The Iraqi National Assembly (parliament) chose on Wednesday Jalal al-Talabani, a veteran Kurdish leader, as the country's new president for the transitional period. (Reuters)

   Along with him, incumbent Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shiite, and the outgoing President Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni Arab, were named as the first and second vice presidents.

   "The president is a Kurd, the former president becomes the vice president, and what do you want more for the democracy in Iraq?" commented Hachim al-Hassani, the newly appointed parliamentary speaker.

   "I promise I will spare no effort in achieving the goals of the Iraqi people... and carrying out the Iraqi duties without sectarian or racial differences," said Talabani, shortly after he was elected.

   The list of the three, called the Presidential Council, won about 90 percent of the vote at the parliamentary session, opened Wednesday morning inside the US-protected Green Zone in Baghdad.

   Eighteen lawmakers were absent at the meeting, including the outgoing prime minister Iyad Allawi, but the reason for his absence was not clear.

   The nomination, a new step toward forming a care-taker government that leads Iraq until the end of the year, came as a
result of hagglings between the main political blocs over the past weeks.

   The Shiite list winning a slim majority in the assembly and the Kurds that came the second only reached an agreement the night before to choose Yawar as one of the two vice presidents.

   Sunni Arabs were largely afraid to vote or boycotted the elections on Jan. 30, but the winning Shiites and Kurds have been eager to involve the minority into the process in order not to further alienate the marginalized community.

   But heated horse-trading talks have delayed the formation of a government more than two months after the elections. Iraqi MPs expected that a government should now be in place by next week.

   According to the interim constitution, the presidential council will have two weeks to designate a prime minister and his cabinet, which shall be put a trust vote in the legislature.

   Human Rights Minister Bukhtyar Amin said Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president ousted by the US-led forces, was able to watch Wednesday's symbolic vote for the president.

   Saddam and his top aides jailed by the US army in Baghdad were provided televisions in their cells to follow the event, so that they "understand their time is over," Amin said.

   Talabani, a former rebel leader fighting with Saddam's regime, is the first Kurd to be crowned the country's president, although it is a largely ceremonial position.

   A liberal politician, Talabani has spent his life struggling for the rights of Iraqi Kurds, long oppressed by the previous dictatorship.

   The Kurds, accounting for no more than 20 percent of the national population, achieved a milestone victory in January when Talabani and his regional rival Massud Barzani fielded a joint list that won more than a quarter of the parliamentary seats. Enditem