Iraq VP says Sunnis won't wait forever for reforms

By Waleed Ibrahim and Dominic Evans

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said Sunni Arabs cannot "wait forever" for the Shi'ite-led government to press ahead with a reconciliation agenda and said it could eventually face a no-confidence vote.

Hashemi, a key member of the Sunni Accordance Front which pulled out of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government last month, said Maliki had shown little urgency to pass laws aimed at curbing Iraq's sectarian warfare.

"I don't believe the government has the sufficient desire and goodwill to pursue the noble targets of reconciliation," he told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

Laws to allow former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party back into public life and allocating oil revenues between Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish regions have yet to be approved, a delay which has frustrated Maliki's critics in Iraq and Washington.

On Thursday, Maliki met Accordance Front members and agreed to set up a committee to look into their demands, but made no public commitment to address them.

Maliki's weak parliamentary alliance was further fractured last Saturday by the withdrawal of the political bloc loyal to Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Sadr's movement said it had no immediate plans to bring down Maliki's government, and Hashemi also said it was premature to speak of a vote of no confidence.

But he said Sunni politicians were in "intensive dialogue" with the parties which have pulled out of Maliki's parliamentary coalition and were "trying to agree upon some sort of agenda, that could be related to a vote of confidence".