Iraqi politicians urged to fill government positions quickly

IRAQI politicians were urged yesterday to speed up negotiations to form a new government.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that while it is up to the Iraqi people to chose their own leaders, the international backers who have spent blood and money to end a dictatorship have a right to expect that it will happen quickly.

Neither pointed to any specific accomplishment from a day-and-a-half spent huddling with nearly all of Iraq’s squabbling factions. But they said their message that Iraq must quickly form a government of national unity got through.