Iraq Press Roundup

NEW YORK, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- Baghdad's Azzaman newspaper reported Tuesday that the decision by the list led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to boycott Nouri al-Maliki's government would hurt the current prime minister.

"This is another blow to Maliki to make him fully paralyzed," the paper said.

Maliki's government, the newspaper said, is inoperative now that 16 ministers have resigned. This boycott comes a few days after six Accordance Front ministers quit.

The paper said Allawi, the head of the Iraqi List, told his ministers not to attend government meetings and boycott the prime minister as "the first step toward withdrawing from government." The resignation comes as a "rejection of the current government's policies."

Meanwhile, Turkish sources told the newspaper that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had asked Maliki to "force his control on the entire country and ... take steps against the Kurdistan Workers Party, including restricting its activities and closing its bases in northern Iraq, and hand over its leadership to Turkish authorities."

Meanwhile, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal said, according to the paper, a Saudi delegation will visit Iraq next week to determine when to open the Saudi Embassy in Baghdad.

The Basra marshes-based Al Bainaa, backed by the Iraqi Hezbollah, carried an editorial Wednesday with the headline: "Those the U.S. presence benefits."

The article said that the existence of the groups, which it did not name, "means there is a security and strategic glitch in terms of sovereignty."

"The more the situation gets worse and we have crises, the more excuses the occupation forces have to stay," the newspaper said.

"Sometimes we think some of the politicians are involved in the political process only to make obstacles and set up stumbling blocks in a road that is already full of difficulties," the editorial said.

It said the United States always looks for a favorite enemy -- a stupid enemy so it is successful in its projects.

"This failure in the government and the remaining of the occupation forces is the responsibility of all the political blocks," the paper said.

Baghdad-based Al Sabah reported Wednesday the chief prosecutor at the criminal court, Jaffar al-Mosawi, announced that sessions for those accused of cracking down on the 1991 uprising will start Aug. 21.

The newspaper also reported that an official source at the High Judicial Council announced that the judicial committee responsible for solving the Boca prisoner case was preparing to release those with no connection to the case. A source told Al Sabah an agreement was reached between the U.S. side and the multinational forces that supervise the prisoners in Boca.