Mahmud Othman Quotations

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

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

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

The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance has asked for two days to decide on the issue of security file.

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

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.

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.

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.

We will oppose this as much as we can.