Iraq's prime minister-designate said Tuesday the main obstacles to forming a new Cabinet have been overcome and he plans to present his team to parliament for approval by the end of the week.
Nouri al-Maliki said representatives of Iraq's political parties had agreed on who will hold the main posts. He said the Defense Ministry, which controls Iraq's military, and the Interior Ministry, which oversees the country's police forces, will by led by independent ministers unaffiliated with the country's many militias.
Discussions were still under way on the nominees for the oil, trade and transportation ministries, he conveyed, acording to the AP. "The direction we took, and which was agreed upon by the political groups, was that the two who will occupy these posts be independent and unaffiliated with a party or a militia," he said at a news conference.
