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Al-Yawir Selected As Iraqi Interim President


1 June 2004 -- UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi today confirmed the appointment of Ghazi Ajil al-Yawir as president of Iraq in a new interim administration.

Al-Yawir is the current head of Iraq's Governing Council, and his selection as president broke a deadlock over the largely ceremonial post in the new interim government that is to take power 30 June.

Adnan Pachachi, a former foreign minister, turned down the position of president shortly after it was offered today. Pachachi was reported to be the preferred choice of Brahimi and the United States, while most of the council preferred al-Yawir, a prominent tribal leader.

Both Pachachi and al-Yawir are Sunni Muslims.

Brahimi said two vice presidents also were named today: Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Shi'ite Muslim Al-Dawa party and Rowsch Shaways, speaker of parliament in the Kurdish autonomous region in Irbil.

(AP/AFP/Reuters)

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