Mahmud Othman Quotes (14 Quotes)

We're still a long way from agreeing on a government.

Today we enter the fifth month since the holding of the elections and we still do not have a government. In fact we have not even started the process of forming the government by at least having a prime minister.

By this evening an agreement should be reached between the Kurds and the Shiites on remaining outstanding issues.

We can still prepare the draft without the Sunnis. All the groups elected in the national assembly can come together and prepare the draft by Monday evening.

There are attempts to convince the (Shiite) alliance to leave the issue of federalism in other parts of Iraq (apart from the Kurdish north) for the next parliament to deal with, and also to implement it gradually over two or three years, not now.

If it is delayed a bit nothing much will affect it because this is a deadline we put ourselves, I mean the coalition and the Governing Council, just the two of us. The two of us are in these meetings ... so if we say that we can't finish it, give it a few more days. It's very logical. It won't be any problem as far as Iraq is concerned.

We have all agreed to a democratic Iraq. We have agreed to ballot boxes deciding everything, We have agreed that the people should chose everything. They've never said they wanted an Islamic law, Islamic state.

We have never said we wanted a Kurdish state. The Arabs have never said they wanted a totally Arab state. So I think as long as we all agreed to democracy we should be flexible and meet in the middle.

Everyone is tired after the last week's hectic activities. It is like a holiday today.

The Sunnis, the Shiites and the Kurds from the panel met separately with their leaders and will come together tomorrow for a joint meeting.

Today is the final day, and the last chance to discuss the draft constitution. We hope to reach an agreement that would satisfy everyone.

If left to the majority Shiites and the Kurds, the draft would be ready by Sunday, but the Sunni Arabs have not agreed yet.

It's a sectarian thing. It's an undeclared small civil war.

The Sunni Arabs are way apart on the issue of federalism... I doubt if they would come on board even during the next one week. But next time I think the MPs will approve the draft without the Sunnis.