Iraq Sunni Arabs won't rejoin cabinet despite deal

BAGHDAD, Aug 27 (Reuters) A new political accord between Iraq's main Sunni Arab, Shi'ite and Kurdish leaders will not be enough to lure minority Sunni Arabs back into the government, the Sunni Arab vice president who signed it said today.

Five political leaders announced the deal late yesterday, agreeing measures to readmit former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to public life and the release of many detainees.

''What happened yesterday is a good achievement in the current confused political situation. It is an achievement that deserves to be supported,'' Tareq al-Hashemi, the Sunni Arab vice president, told reporters.

Hashemi signed the agreement along with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite, and three other leading Shi'ite and Kurdish political leaders.

But Hashemi said the Accordance Front, which groups three parties from the disaffected Sunni Arab minority, would not reverse its decision to quit the cabinet on August 1.

''Our previous experience with the government has not been encouraging, and we will not go back just because of promises, unless there are real and tangible reforms,'' he said.

US Ambassador Ryan Crocker hailed the deal, which will give him at least some good news to deliver in two weeks when he and the top US general in Iraq, David Petraeus, report back to Washington in a pivotal moment for US policy.

''The statement released by the five leaders yesterday is a positive and encouraging message that the government is making all efforts to achieve benefits for Iraqi people,'' Crocker told a conference in Arabic today.

''I'm optimistic. I can see there is progress,'' said Crocker.

The remarks were a significant change of tone for the diplomat, who said just a week ago that the government's progress was ''extremely disappointing''.

US officials have been suggesting for weeks that Petraeus would give a fairly upbeat assessment of security in Iraq since Washington sent 30,000 extra troops this year but that Crocker would have little progress to report on the political front.

SUPPORT QUESTIONED Experts question whether the five leaders who reached the deal have enough support to pass laws in parliament.

On the Sunni Arab side, Hashemi leads just one of the three parties in the Accordance Front. On the Shi'ite side, the leaders who signed the deal did not include followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose ministers quit the government this year.

''I don't see how they can push these through parliament when they don't have a majority in parliament,'' said Joost Hiltermann of the International Crisis Group think tank. ''It will be very difficult to get some of these benchmarks met by this new alliance, which is basically more narrow than the one before.'' Political leaders in Iraq have announced broad agreements in the past but struggled to implement them or hammer out details.

The leaders also discussed a law to distribute Iraq's oil wealth, but officials said more talks were needed for a deal.

Hashemi said the new rules on Baath Party members would be ''a significant improvement'' and would relax curbs that had barred thousands of middle class Iraqis from returning to work.

A framework was also drawn up to free some of the tens of thousands held in US and Iraqi jails without charge.

Many of the detainees and Baath Party members are Sunni Arabs who feel persecuted by Maliki's Shi'ite-led government.

Hashemi and the US military separately announced a programme to increase the number of detainees released from US custody as early as this week to allow them to return home before the start of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, which begins in mid-September.

Washington hopes resolving such disputes will reduce sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.

US forces reported two army soldiers and two Marines were killed, while the governor of Salahuddin province escaped an assassination attempt that, if successful, would have made him the third regional governor to be killed this month.

REUTERS SY KP2253