News

Iraq’s newly-appointed President, Jalal Talabani (pictured), is apparently using his full allowance of 15 days to formally appoint a new Prime Minister, thus allowing the haggling over the details to continue. And while Nouri al-Maliki remains the ‘agreed’ candidate, we should never under-estimate the Iraqi parliament’s ability to throw us a last-minute surprise.

If al-Maliki is appointed on Thursday as expected, he is then allowed 30 days in which to appoint a cabinet – based on progress thus far, we should not expect to see new name-plates on the doors much before Christmas.

Our information is that incumbent Oil Minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, will be re-appointed to that key position, but that other ministries are being hotly contested.