The government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has been plunging deeper into crisis after the former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi National List (INL) officially announced on Tuesday that its five ministers would no longer attend cabinet meetings.
This move brings to 17 the number of Iraqi ministers withdrew from Maliki's cabinet, almost half of the 37 cabinet members, shaping a major setback for Maliki's efforts to achieve national reconciliation among the county's Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
In a statement issued by the secular political bloc, the INL said that though they would not attend the cabinet meetings, its ministers would continue their daily administrative work.
The mixed Shiite and Sunni body warned that the bloc would take tougher stances in the future if the government failed to meet its demands, said Ayad Jamal al-Din, an INL member, who read the statement during a news conference.
"Since February, the INL had submitted written suggestions to the prime minister in a bid to improve the performance of the government, but we didn't receive any answers," Jamal al-Din said.
"Instead, the government continued its policy of marginalization for our list's figures," he added.
He said the INL demanded a broader political participation by all Iraqis to reap real national reconciliation in the war-torn country and an end to sectarian favoritism practiced by the Islamic Shiite-dominated government.
Allawi had asked on Sunday the ministers of his bloc, which has 11 seats in the Iraqi 275-seat parliament, to boycott cabinet meetings as a preliminary step to withdrawal from the government led by Nuri al-Maliki in protest against its polices.
Source: Xinhua
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