Zaidi says cabinet completion is near, 89 days after taking office

BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi told Coordination Framework leaders on Monday that the completion of his government is close, nearly three months after parliament approved him with five ministries rejected and four more left unvoted.

The alliance called it a regular meeting, held at the office of Reconstruction and Development Coalition leader Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, and said it covered domestic government and legislative developments along with the services and security situation in Iraq and the region. It gave no timeline for the appointments.

Zaidi was approved on May 14 after months of disputes inside the Framework and took the oath two days later. Parliament confirmed 14 ministers but rejected the nominees for planning, culture, construction and housing, higher education and interior, and postponed voting on defense, labor, migration and youth and sports. The interior and defense ministries remain unfilled at a time when U.S. and Saudi aircraft have struck Iraqi territory and armed factions have threatened to retaliate.

A photograph from the meeting showed Zaidi with Framework leaders but without Ahmed al-Asadi, head of the Sumeriyoun Alliance and a former labor minister, for whom Baghdad’s Karkh Court of Appeal issued two arrest warrants at the weekend. They accuse him of failing to establish the source of an increase in his wealth and of benefiting from contracts he helped prepare as minister.

Abu Alaa al-Walaei, secretary-general of Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada, has not attended Framework meetings since the session that nominated Zaidi. He leads one of three factions refusing to join the government’s plan to bring weapons under state control by Sept. 30, and the U.S. State Department offered a reward of up to $10 million for information on him in April.