Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political bloc announced its withdrawal from the government Wednesday, undermining Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's efforts to seek reconciliation among the country's rival factions. The announcement came a week after the Iraqi Accordance Front, which has six Cabinet ministers and 44 of parliament's 275 seats, presented al-Maliki with a set of demands it said he must meet within seven days or it would quit his government. The ultimatum expired Wednesday. «The government is continuing with its arrogance, refusing to change its stand and has slammed shut the door to any meaningful reforms necessary for saving Iraq,» Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Accordance Front, told a news conference. «We had hoped that the government would respond to these demands or at least acknowledge the failure of its policies, which led Iraq to a level of misery it had not seen in modern history. But its stand did not surprise us at all,» al-Issawi said, reading from a prepared statement was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. «The Iraqi Accordance Front announces its withdrawal from the government of Nouri al-Maliki,» Rafaa al-Issawi, a leading member of the Front, said at a news conference in Baghdad. He said the bloc's six Cabinet ministers would submit their resignations later Wednesday. Al-Issawi said the decision to resign was based on al-Maliki's failure to respond to the demands put forward by the Accordance Front. Among the demands: a pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias and the participation of all groups represented in the government in dealing with security issues.
