{"id":23290,"date":"2018-11-26T11:22:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T11:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23290"},"modified":"2018-11-26T11:22:42","modified_gmt":"2018-11-26T11:22:42","slug":"yemen-army-stops-houthi-advance-towards-south-hodeidah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=23290","title":{"rendered":"Yemen army stops Houthi advance towards south Hodeidah"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nBAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi will present his candidates for eight ministerial positions Monday but the key positions related to security have still not been resolved.<\/p>\n

\nThe nominations come after a month of tough negotiations and serious disagreements over candidates for the Interior and Defense ministries, negotiators told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nAbdul Mahdi, who took office last month, was chosen as the result of a political compromise between the rival two largest parliamentary coalitions.<\/p>\n

\nThe Reform alliance led by the influential cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr is vying for influence against the Iran-backed Al-Binna\u2019a, a coalition led by Hadi Al-Amiri. Al-Amiri is the head of Badr Organization, a powerful Shiite armed faction.<\/p>\n

\nAn attempt to fill the eight remaining ministries earlier this month was postponed after the two alliances were locked in disagreement.<\/p>\n

\nNegotiators said this time the two sides had reached agreement on six ministers but interior and defense would probably remain empty.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cAs long as we can\u2019t agree on all the candidates, let\u2019s go with what we have so far,\u201d a key Reform negotiator told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBoth alliances have agreed on the candidates of six ministries, so we will delay the vote on the candidates of interior and defense until further notice,\u201d.<\/p>\n

\nThe vacant ministries to be occupied on Monday are justice, culture, education, higher education, immigration and planning. Abdul Mahdi\u2019s nominations for interior and defense will not have the required backing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nMaj. Gen. Faisal Fener, a former commander of Saddam Hussein\u2019s private jet squadron, had been backed by Amiri and his allies to be the next defense minister.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nBut Fener was finally ruled out from the position because of laws against former members of Saddam\u2019s Ba\u2019ath party holding government positions. In particular, he was sanctioned \u201cfor his involvement in the 1991 oppression of the Shiite-led uprising against Saddam,\u201d negotiators said.<\/p>\n

\nFaleh Al-Fayad, a former national security adviser \u2014 also backed by Amiri \u2014 is still the sole candidate for the Interior Ministry.<\/p>\n

\nOne of Sadr\u2019s main negotiators said Fener had been \u201cexcluded by the law, not by us.\u201d The negotiator said no deal had been reached between the two factions on Fayad.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\u201cFrom the beginning we made an agreement with the leadership of Al-Binna\u2019a suggesting that the candidates to occupy the interior and defense should be independent and have nothing to do with the political parties, but they have been insisting to nominate Fayad.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe have nothing against him but he is not independent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe formation of Iraq\u2019s government has been painfully slow since elections in May.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe US, which backs Reform, and Iran, have been pushing for their allies to gain the biggest influence in the new government, particularly in the security ministries.<\/p>\n

\nIraq has been a battleground for the US and Iran since the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam.<\/p>\n

\nIran has gained increasing influence in the country by controlling the officials who run the the Interior Ministry and Fayad is no exception. He is seen by most Iraqi parties as Tehran\u2019s man.<\/p>\n

\nHe was also the head of the umbrella organization overseeing Shiite paramilitary troops, which fought Daesh alongside the government from 2014.<\/p>\n

\nFayad was one of the main allies of former prime minister Haider Al-Abadi. But he turned against him and allied with Amiri during the negotiations to form the government.<\/p>\n

\nAn Al-Binna\u2019a negotiator said they had little option other than to nominate Fayad because they have no other option and he is backed by the powerful Iranian General Qassim Soleimani who oversees Tehran\u2019s involvement in Iraq and other countries in the region.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cHe is the candidate of Soleimani so we can\u2019t withdraw his nomination,\u201d the negotiator said, adding that Soleiman is trying to reward him after he lost his previous positions due to falling out with Abadi.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi will present his candidates for eight ministerial positions Monday but the key positions related to security have still not been resolved. The nominations come after a month of tough negotiations and serious disagreements over candidates for the Interior and Defense ministries, negotiators told Arab News. Abdul Mahdi, who…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":23291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23290","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\/23290","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=23290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}