ARAB-US RELATIONS - Apr 2 - Time Running Out In Iraq, Rice Cautions.

US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, tells Iraqi leaders that time is running out to form a new government. "The Iraqi people are losing patience", Ms Rice said after meeting Sunni, Shi'ites and Kurdish leaders during a surprise trip to Baghdad with Jack Straw, her British counterpart. "What is more, your international allies want to see this done". The aim of the visit was to try to break a three-month deadlock over forming a government of national unity. Some observers blame the deadlock for the escalation in sectarian violence. But the visit also came as Ibrahim al-Jaa'fari, Iraqi PM, faced renewed pressure to resign his position, with senior figures in the Shi'ites coalition that won December's election for the first time publicly calling for him to stand down. Both Washington and London have concerns about Jaa'fari's desire to remain in office, with some viewing him as an obstacle to the formation of a government. Kurdish and Sunni politicians last month called for him to be replaced, accusing him and his Shi'ites power base of sectarianism. But US and British officials are also painfully aware of the danger of being seen to impose their wishes on Iraq's population. Aside from Jaa'fari, the two foreign ministers also saw Iraqi Pres Jalal Talabani, and leader of the SCIRI Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the largest party within the Shi'ites United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) political bloc. It was a senior parliamentarian from Sciri who on Apr 2 called on the PM to resign. "I call on Ja'fari to step down as nominee for PM because the candidate ought to secure a national consensus from other lists and also international acceptance", Jalal al-Deen al-Saghir told Reuters. He said he was speaking in a personal capacity but made clear the party's position was now against Jaa'fari. "This is just the beginning and other calls will follow". The plea followed similar calls on Saturday from other partners in the UIA. Ms Rice tried to damp down expectations of a breakthrough soon. "We are not going to leave here with a government. That is not the purpose of this", she told a news briefing of US-based reporters travelling with her. Reinforcing the message delivered by Ms Rice, Iraq's FM Hoshyar Zebari, also warned, on CNN's Late Edition, that time was running out for Iraq's political parties. "We are losing a great deal of time and, unless this government is formed to be up and running definitely, I believe seriously that there will be more killing and more Iraqi blood shed in vain". Zebari also said that, although Iraqi leaders had tried to settle the question of Jaa'fari's candidacy for a second term, "it seems that the issue will not be resolved, and it will go [to] the parliament to be settled there". Meanwhile, the violence continued on Apr 2, with insurgents blowing up a small Shi'ites mosque north-east of Baghdad while police reported the discovery of nearly 40 bodies in several neighbourhoods of the Iraqi capital.