BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s presidency council has asked a court to rule on the legitimacy of a panel that banned scores of candidates from the March election because of links to Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, the president said on Thursday.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, played down the significance of the move by a Shi’ite-led independent committee, saying the resulting furor, including alarm among minority Sunnis who dominated Iraq under Saddam, was overblown.

“It is not a major political crisis … it will not be. It is a little bit exaggerated,” Talabani said.

Angry fallout among Sunnis had threatened to reopen sectarian wounds just as the slaughter between Sunnis and Shi’ites triggered by the 2003 U.S. invasion begins to recede.

BAGHDAD, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Iraq’s presidency council has asked a court to rule on the legitimacy of a panel that banned scores of candidates from the March election because of links to Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, the president said on Thursday. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, played down the significance of the move by a Shi’ite-led independent committee, saying the resulting furore, including alarm among minority Sunnis who dominated Iraq under Saddam, was overblown. "It is not a major political crisis … it will not be. It is a little bit exaggerated," Talabani said. Angry fallout among Sunnis had threatened to reopen sectarian wounds just as the slaughter between Sunnis and Shi’ites triggered by the 2003 U.S. invasion begins to recede. U.S. officials have lobbied for a resolution, perhaps fearing that plans for U.S. troops to end combat operations in August ahead of a full withdrawal by end-2011 could be derailed. Vice President Joe Biden was expected to visit, Talabani said. The Justice and Accountability Commission, a body that replaced a "de-Baathification" committee established by U.S,. administrators after the invasion to root out Saddam loyalists, has barred 511 candidates from the March 7 parliamentary vote. The list included prominent Sunni leader Saleh al-Mutlaq, generating widespread protests from Sunnis that Iraq’s majority Shi’ites were trying to sideline them. Two thirds of those on the list when it was filtered out on Wednesday turned out to be Shi’ite, potentially defusing the row. "We have asked our brother Medhat al-Mahmoud (head of the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council) whether the commission called justice and accountability really exists. As we know, parliament has not voted it into existence yet," Talabani said. The March 7 election is a pivotal moment for Iraq as it emerges from all-out war. The country has also started to seal multibillion-dollar deals with global oil firms that could catapult it into the big leagues of oil producers and give it the billions it needs to rebuild. That could be threatened by growing instability. The panel that banned the candidates is staffed by former members of the U.S.-created de-Baathification committee because parliament has failed to agree on their replacements. Its leaders are associated with an electoral alliance led by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a powerful Shi’ite political movement that was formed in Iran. Analysts say the composition of the list of banned candidates suggests it could be aimed at reducing the electoral threat posed by secular groups to the Islamist parties that have dominated Iraq since the invasion, and not at Sunnis. The Baath party under Saddam ruled Iraq with an iron fist for more than two decades, brutally repressing any opposition from Shi’ites and Kurds. Many Iraqis, whether Sunni or Shi’ite, joined because it was the only way to get a good job. At a news conference, Iyad Jamal al-Deen, a secular Shi’ite who wears religious clothing and heads the small Ahrar coalition of Shi’ite and Sunni parties, said 20 of his 200 candidates were on the list and called the ban an attempt at "disenfranchisement and marginalisation". "The measures of the Justice and Accountability committee should be halted," Deen said, adding, "The U.S. has to intervene to rectify the course of the democratic process in Iraq." In heavily Shi’ite southern Iraq on Thursday, crowds hundreds strong demonstrated to call for the full implementation of laws banning the Baath party. Iraqi elections officials barred another 75 candidates from the vote; not for Baathist ties, but because of misrepresentations in their educational qualifications. (Additional reporting by Khalid Al-Ansary and Muhanad Mohammed; editing by Michael Christie and Ralph Boulton)

BAGHDAD, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Iraq’s presidency council has asked a court to rule on the legitimacy of a panel that banned scores of candidates from the March election because of links to Saddam Hussein’s Baath party, the president said on Thursday. President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, played down the significance of the move by a Shi’ite-led independent committee, saying the resulting furore, including alarm among minority Sunnis who dominated Iraq under Saddam, was overblown. "It is not a major political crisis … it will not be. It is a little bit exaggerated," Talabani said. Angry fallout among Sunnis had threatened to reopen sectarian wounds just as violence between Sunnis and Shi’ites triggered by the 2003 U.S. invasion begins to recede. U.S. officials have lobbied for a resolution, perhaps fearing that plans for U.S. troops to end combat operations in August ahead of a full withdrawal by end-2011 could be derailed. Vice President Joe Biden was expected to visit, Talabani said. The Justice and Accountability Commission, a body that replaced a "de-Baathification" committee established by U.S,. administrators after the invasion to rout out Saddam loyalists, has barred 511 candidates from the March 7 parliamentary vote. The list included prominent Sunni leader Saleh al-Mutlaq, generating widespread protests from Sunnis that Iraq’s majority Shi’ites were trying to sideline them. Two thirds of those on the list when it was filtered out on Wednesday turned out to be Shi’ite, potentially defusing the row. "We have asked our brother Medhat al-Mahmoud (head of the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council) whether the commission called justice and accountability really exists. As we know, parliament has not voted it into existence yet," Talabani said. The March election is a pivotal moment for Iraq as it emerges from all-out war. The country has also started to seal multibillion-dollar deals with global oil firms that could catapult it into the big leagues of oil producers and give it the billions it needs to rebuild. That could be threatened by growing instability. The panel that banned the candidates is staffed by former members of the U.S.-created de-Baathification committee because parliament has failed to agree on their replacements. Its leaders are associated with an electoral alliance led by the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, a powerful Shi’ite political movement that was formed in Iran. Analysts say the composition of the list of banned candidates suggests it could be aimed at reducing the electoral threat posed by secular groups to the Islamist parties that have dominated Iraq since the invasion, and not at Sunnis. In heavily Shi’ite southern Iraq on Thursday, crowds hundreds strong demonstrated to call for the full implementation of laws banning the Baath party. (Editing by Michael Christie)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has urged parliament to lift the immunity from prosecution of some lawmakers for lauding the Saddam Hussein era, saying they were harming the political process ahead of March elections.

The reemergence of heated debate over the Baath party, which ruled Iraq from the late 1960s until 2003 and was dominated by Saddam’s fellow Sunni Arab minority, is roiling Iraqi politics less than two months before the parliamentary election.

Lawmakers were granted immunity from prosecution for political speech under the Iraqi constitution that was written following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The president does not have the power to amend or overrule the constitution but political pressure that bars Sunni Arabs from election could prompt a repeat of a boycott that marred the 2005 vote.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iran and Iraq have begun talks to try to resolve a dispute over an inactive oil well in a sensitive area along the nearly 1,500-km border between the two countries, their foreign ministers said on Thursday.

Iraq’s Hoshiyar Zebari met Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki in a move to cool tensions between the neighbors after a small contingent of Iranian troops moved into an oilfield inside Iraqi territory last month and Iraq vowed it would not give up an inch of its land.

Their comments at a news conference after the meeting made clear the essence of the dispute had not been resolved. Mottaki said Iranian troops had been told to withdraw “to their original locations,” but Zebari indicated they had not moved far enough.

“The Iranian troops brought down the Iranian flag and withdrew (only) to a certain distance,” Zebari said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq has released a Shi’ite militant leader, an Interior Ministry official said on Tuesday, raising hopes that the last of five British hostages captured in Baghdad more than 2-1/2 years ago would be returned.

But several sources familiar with Khazali’s Shi’ite militant group denied he had been released and British officials believe the last remaining hostage, Alan McMenemy, is now dead.

“According to the information available to us, Qais al-Khazali was released the day before yesterday,” said Alaa al-Taii, the head of the Interior Ministry’s media division.

But Sami al-Askari, a member of parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a liaison for the government on the hostage issue, said judges were still considering Khazali’s case.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Delayed elections in Iraq and a bloody attack this week will not derail U.S. troop withdrawal plans, U.S. officials said as Defense Secretary Robert Gates flew into Baghdad to meet Iraqi leaders.

Gates did not see one of his main Iraqi counterparts as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki canceled their meeting in order to defend his government’s record before parliament, two days after the bombings killed dozens of people in Baghdad.

Tuesday’s bombings were the third assault in four months on what should have been heavily protected government buildings, and seemed designed to undermine the Shi’ite Muslim prime minister’s claim to have brought security to Iraq as he campaigns for the elections.

Police say the coordinated bombings across the Iraqi capital killed 112, but Health Ministry officials put the toll at 77. Insurgents linked with al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq on Tuesday set a long awaited date for a general election next year, but later pushed it back by one day to March 7, amid political wrangling typical of the squabbles which have already delayed the vote.

Naseer al-Ani, President Jalal Talabani’s chief of staff, told Reuters the presidency council had picked the new date late on Tuesday, after an earlier date of March 6.

The date was announced a few hours after a series of car bombs ripped through Baghdad, killing 112 people and wounding 425, a brutal reminder of the threat still posed by the Sunni Islamist insurgency 6-1/2 years after the U.S. invasion.

The election date reduces risk to a U.S. plan to end combat operations in Iraq next August ahead of full withdrawal by 2012.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi politicians agreed a last-minute deal on Sunday to overcome divisions on a law needed for an election to take place next year, reducing the risks to U.S. plans for a partial withdrawal in 2010.

With 10 minutes till a midnight deadline for one of Iraq’s vice presidents to cast a second veto of the law, deputies, badgered by U.S. and U.N. officials, voted unanimously to approve a compromise on the distribution of parliamentary seats.

Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, said he accepted the accord, which was voted on in a nail-biting session, and that he would run the dates of February 27 or 28 by the electoral authorities to see which would be most suitable.

The three-person presidency council, of which Hashemi is a part, would then set a date.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi politicians agreed a last minute deal on Sunday to overcome divisions on a law needed for an election to take place next year, reducing the risks to U.S. plans for a partial withdrawal in 2010.

With 10 minutes till a midnight deadline for one of Iraq’s vice presidents to cast a second veto of the law, deputies, badgered by U.S. and U.N. officials, voted unanimously to approve a compromise on the distribution of parliamentary seats.

Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, said he accepted the accord, which was voted on in a nail biting session, and that he would run the dates of February 27 or 28 by the electoral authorities to see which would be most suitable.

The three-person presidency council, of which Hashemi is a part, would then set a date.