Allawi eyes the influential prime minister post. (Reuters)

BAGHDAD, February 12 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The two main Kurdish parties in Iraq have given their conditional go-ahead for a parliamentary coalition with interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, well-placed Kurdish sources have revealed.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) asked, in swap, for Allawi’s backing for PUK leader Jalal Talabani to be elected president, the sources told Al-Quds Press Friday, February 11.

The Kurds also pressed for an official recognition that the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk, which they reportedly want to be the capital of an enlarged autonomous region, was part of Iraq Kurdistan, the sources added.

During a surprise visit by Allawi to Arbil on Thursday, February 10, Kurdish officials further asked that Arabs in Kirkuk be regarded as “refugees” who must be deported gradually to allow the return of Kurds allegedly forced to leave their homes by the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein.

Allawi nodded enthusiastically to the Kurdish demands in return for backing his hard-fought battle to keep the much-coveted and influential prime minister post.

The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a coalition blessed by the country’s most revered Shiite scholar, Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, and tipped to win the majority of seats in the 275-member Transitional National Assembly, reportedly insists on capturing the prestigious post.

Its three main candidates are interim Deputy President Ibrahim Jaafari, interim Finance Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi and Ahmad Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon’s protégé.

The Allawi-Kurds deal came after the UIA failed to entice the two Kurdish parties into a parliamentary alliance, Al-Quds Press said.

Following marathon talks with interim Kurdish Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, UIA officials declined to tackle the future status of Kirkuk or the prospect of a Kurdish president to the country.

Thorny

Kurdish leaders Barzani (L) and Talabani reportedly want oil-rich Kirkuk as the capital of Iraq Kurdistan.

The ethnic tinderbox city of Kirkuk has proved to be a thorn in the side.

Arabs and Turkomans in Kirkuk have frequently doubted Kurdish censuses, reinforcing that the Kurds do not represent a majority of the city’s 755,000 population, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Hundreds of them took to the streets of the city Friday, charging that last month's election had been riddled with fraud and demanding a re-run.

“There are documents and plenty of evidence showing that fraud took place during the elections in Kirkuk,” said a statement which was distributed to protestors and signed by 16 Arab and Turkoman groups.

Among the signatories were the Iraqi Turkoman Front, the Shiite Dawa Party, and the movement of young Shiite leader Moqtada Al-Sadr.

Sunni and Shiite Arab parties pulled out of the election in Tamim province around Kirkuk to protest the authorities' registration of tens of thousands of non-resident Kurds who argued their families had been forced out of the city under Saddam.

The decision effectively tipped the balance in favor of the Kurds in the city, prompting dire warnings of sectarian violence from Arabs and Turkomans.

A decision brokered in January by the interim Iraqi government gave tens of thousands of displaced Kurds the right to vote in Kirkuk.

Fifty-Fifty

Experts believe that the two electoral Shiite and Kurdish powerhouses are poised to clinch the country’s two top jobs, with results from the landmark January 30 polls expected any time.

“Looking at the partial results, it appears that the Sistani list will have more than 50 percent and that Kurdish parties will come second,” Sunni politician Saad Abdel Razzak told AFP.

“They should therefore share the posts of president and prime minister between themselves.”

Partial results showed that the UIA had obtained 2,244,237 out of 4,366,843 votes counted, or 51.4 percent of ballots cast.

It could even improve this score when the rest of the polling stations in remaining Shiite-dominated southern provinces are counted, securing around 140 out of the National Assembly's 275 seats.

A very high turnout in the northern Kurdish areas also guarantees the joint ticket formed by PUK and the KDP a strong presence in parliament and plum posts in the government.

With 1,075,534 votes, the Kurds are emerging the second political force in the country, ahead of Allawi’s list.

Most Sunnis did not demonstrate any enthusiasm for the vote amid boycott calls from leading Sunni powers and scenes of deserted bullet-scarred polling stations.

“Discussions are under way in order to reach a consensus on the distribution of posts in the executive and several scenarios can be considered,” said Abdul Razzak, a member of elder statesman Adnan Pachachi's party.

Abdel Razzak predicts that Talabani will get one of the two top jobs.

He also predicted that Abdel Mahdi would be edged out by his boss in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Abdelaziz Hakim.

Such a deal would leave the Sunnis without any high-profile representation in the next executive.

Nonetheless, pundits said the post of parliament speaker, which is likely to be granted to a Sunni, could be a very influential one in the upcoming constitution-drafting phase.

The Transitional Administrative Law which serves as the country's interim constitution until a permanent one is drawn up, stipulates that the appointment of the president and his two deputies has to be approved by a two-thirds majority in parliament.

The presidential council subsequently has to unanimously approve the choice of a prime minister, whose government line-up then has to be okayed by a majority of MPs.