ANKARA: The announcement of the new Iraqi government, expected yesterday, has been further delayed, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said.
He said negotiations on the make-up of the government were continuing, stressing the need for a consensus on the right of all communities in Iraq to be represented in the administration.
"We want to see the Sunni Arabs in the cabinet... We want to see a national unity government."
On Wednesday, Talabani had said Wednesday that Prime minister-designate Ibrahim Al Jaafari would finally unveil the cabinet line-up yesterday, more than 11 weeks after general elections in January.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb exploded in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, wounding one soldier in a US convoy. When another US soldier fired his machine-gun at a suspected Iraqi ambush sight, a female Iraqi civilian was wounded, then died in a hospital, US officials said.
Hours later, gunfire erupted downtown, and an eyewitness saw a young boy lying dead in a street near three smouldering cars.
Sporadic gunfire continued for about two hours. When it subsided, Iraqis pulled the charred body of an adult from one of the burned cars. It was not clear how the two had been killed.
The Iraqi Defence Ministry identified 19 bullet-riddled bodies found on Wednesday in Haditha, northwest of Baghdad, as fishermen, not soldiers as initially rumoured.
l A British military court yesterday stopped proceedings against a soldier who allegedly faked photographs which were published in a newspaper purporting to show the abuse of an Iraqi prisoner.
A defence ministry spokesman said the court martial proceedings against Private Stuart Mackenzie, 25, should be "stayed following the emergence of new evidence."