{"id":14365,"date":"2018-09-08T16:27:03","date_gmt":"2018-09-08T16:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14365"},"modified":"2018-09-08T16:27:03","modified_gmt":"2018-09-08T16:27:03","slug":"iraqs-top-two-parliament-groups-urge-pm-to-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14365","title":{"rendered":"Iraq&#8217;s top two parliament groups urge PM to resign"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-io-article-url=\"http:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/node\/1368846\/middle-east\" readability=\"49\">\n<p>\nBAGHDAD:\u00a0The two leading groups in Iraq&#8217;s parliament on Saturday called on Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi to resign, after lawmakers held an emergency meeting on unrest shaking the country&#8217;s south.<br \/>&#8220;We demand the government apologise to the people and resign immediately,&#8221; said Hassan Al-Aqouli, spokesman for the list of populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr that won the most seats in a May election.<br \/>The announcement dealt a severe blow to Abadi&#8217;s hopes of holding onto his post through a parliamentary bloc unveiled just days earlier with Sadr, a former militia chief.<br \/>Ahmed Al-Assadi, spokesman for the second-largest list, the Conquest Alliance, condemned &#8220;the government&#8217;s failure to resolve the crisis in Basra&#8221;, a southern city where 12 protesters were killed this week in clashes with security forces.<br \/>The Conquest Alliance was &#8220;on the same wavelength&#8221; as Sadr&#8217;s Marching Towards Reform list and they would work together to form a new government, Assadi said.<br \/>Abadi defended his record in parliament, describing the unrest as &#8220;political sabotage&#8221; and saying the crisis over public services was being exploited for political ends.<br \/>Anger in Basra flared after the hospitalisation of 30,000 people who had drunk polluted water, in an oil-rich region where residents have for weeks complained of water and electricity shortages, corruption among officials and unemployment.<br \/>Demonstrators have set fire to government buildings, the Iranian consulate and the offices of pro-Tehran militias and political parties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BAGHDAD:\u00a0The two leading groups in Iraq&#8217;s parliament on Saturday called on Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi to resign, after lawmakers held an emergency meeting on unrest shaking the country&#8217;s south.&#8221;We demand the government apologise to the people and resign immediately,&#8221; said Hassan Al-Aqouli, spokesman for the list of populist Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr that won the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":14366,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}