Sunni Arabs threaten to quit government

Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab bloc today said it has suspended its membership of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s coalition government, dealing a serious blow to the Shiite leader’s efforts to achieve national reconciliation.

The Iraqi Accordance Front, which has five Cabinet members as well as 44 of parliament’s 275 seats, said it was giving Maliki a week to meet their demands or they would quit his 14-month-old Cabinet altogether.

“The Accordance Front announces the suspension of its membership in the government,” Sheik Khalaf al-Elyan told a news conference also attended by the two other leaders of the three-party Accordance Front, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi and Adnan al-Dulaimi.

Reading from a prepared statement, al-Elyan said the front’s demands were a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, a firm commitment by the government to human rights and the disbanding of militias.