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Iraq’s interim President Ghazi al-Yawer said on Saturday that most Iraqis will not vote in Sunday’s elections due to deteriorating security conditions and warned that the poll will not be successful if the Sunnis don’t participate. "What we hope is that everyone will take part," President Ghazi al-Yawer said at a press conference on Saturday. "But if the majority of the Iraqi people does not take part, and we know that the majority will not take part because of the security situation and not because they are boycotting the elections," "There are only very few who will boycott, but the...

Fresh violence roiled the Middle East on Monday as President Bush prepared to welcome Iraq's interim president to the White House. Islamic militants launched a bold attack on the U.S. consulate in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, hurling explosives at the heavily guarded compound and forcing their way inside. The White House was monitoring developments, said Sean McCormack, spokesman for the National Security Council. Bush, meanwhile, was scheduled to meet with Ghazi al-Yawer, the interim Iraqi president - an influential leader in Sunni Muslim regions of Iraq where the fiercest battles against insurgents have been waged. Both men want the Jan. 30...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made an unannounced trip to Baghdad early Friday for talks with top Iraqi officials, including the country's new president, Ghazi al-Yawer. U.S. Embassy spokesman Bob Callahan said Powell was met at Baghdad International Airport by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte. Powell is the highest ranking American official to visit since Iraq's interim government took power on June 28. Callahan told The Associated Press that Powell is expected to hold talks Friday with al-Yawer and Iraq's deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh.

With little of the pomp and circumstance appropriate for historical occasions such as the installation of a new regime, but with a lot of formalism and under the watchful eye of armed guards, the new Iraqi transitional government was announced on June 2, 2004. The government comprises a president, two vice presidents, a prime minister, and a deputy prime minister, and 30 ministers. The ethnic distribution of the portfolios was first introduced with the appointment of Iraq's Governing Council (IGC) and was maintained under the new configuration as well. The president, Sheikh Ghazi Mash'al Ujail Al-Yawer, a Sunni Muslim with...