BAGHDAD — Nearly a year after pulling out of Iraq's "unity government," the main Sunni Arab political bloc returned to the Shiite Muslim-led Cabinet on Saturday, in a breakthrough for efforts to mend relations between the country's largest religious communities.
The decision represented a victory for Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, who earlier this year was facing calls for a vote of no confidence over his failure to build an effective governing coalition.
U.S. and Iraqi officials hope the Sunni bloc's return to the Cabinet will help consolidate recent security gains and give momentum to negotiations on an election law and other key power-sharing legislation. But it remains to be seen whether Maliki's selections will be considered representative of the disaffected Sunni Muslim minority, which until recently was the driving force in Iraq's deadly insurgency.
Analysts said Maliki's successes on the political and security fronts probably played a part in the decision by the Iraqi Accordance Front, known in Arabic as Tawafiq, to return to the Cabinet ahead of provincial elections promised for the fall.
The move came a day after the White House said President Bush had agreed to set a "general time horizon" for withdrawals of U.S. combat troops from Iraq. Maliki had been pressing Washington for a timeline after facing a domestic backlash over negotiations for a deal governing U.S.-Iraqi relations after the United Nations mandate for foreign troops in Iraq expires at the end of the year.
"With Maliki gaining in stature and now appearing to have reached an agreement with Washington regarding a timetable for troop withdrawals, Tawafiq risks being left behind if it does not come back in," said Vali Nasr, a professor of international politics at Tufts University.
Parliament on Saturday overwhelmingly approved the appointment of six Tawafiq members to ministerial positions, including a deputy prime minister's slot. Four independent Shiites were also approved to fill posts vacated by followers of populist Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr.
"What happened today is a national step forward to enhance the role of the government and national reconciliation," Tawafiq said in a statement read by spokesman Salim Abdullah Jabouri.
Maliki's Cabinet has been a unity government in name only since Tawafiq yanked its six representatives last August, accusing the dominant Shiite factions of refusing to share power.
