Sunni group rejoins Iraq cabinet

BAGHDAD, July 19 (UPI) -- A group of disgruntled Sunni Arab lawmakers have rejoined Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet in a key reconciliation step, observers say.

Six ministers from the Sunni Accordance Front, which left the government a year ago to protest Shiite unwillingness to share power, have rejoined al-Maliki's cabinet, the BBC reported Saturday. The move was hailed as an important step in persuading the country's Sunni Arab minority to participate in upcoming provincial elections.

An Accordance Front spokesman, Salim al-Joubouri, told the BBC that the bloc's candidates would attend the next Iraq cabinet meeting.

The British broadcaster said relations between Sunnis and Shiites have improved since many Sunni prisoners, arrested in the last several years as the government focused on defusing the Sunni-led insurgency, were freed in February under a new amnesty law. The government has since switched its emphasis to battling Shia militias such as that of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army.