IRAQ: Iraq's embattled prime minister has defiantly refused to give up his claim to head the country's next government, in spite of strong American and British pleas for an end to a deadlock which has paralysed the country for almost four months.
In an exclusive interview in Baghdad - his first since Condoleezza Rice and British foreign secretary Jack Straw pleaded with him and his rivals for an immediate agreement to prevent a slide to civil war - Ibrahim Jaafari insisted he would continue to carry out his duties.
"I heard their points of view even though I disagree with them," he said, referring to the Ms Rice and Mr Straw's hectic arm-twisting visit to the Iraqi capital which ended on Monday.
Mr Jaafari won the nomination for Iraq's leadership by a single vote within the Shia bloc that came out on top in last December's election. But the bloc controls less than half the seats in parliament and so long as the Sunni, Kurdish and secular parties refuse to back him, Iraq is left in a political vacuum.
Mr Jaafari, a former doctor who spent years in exile in Britain while Saddam Hussein ruled, will not give way to other candidates from his party who have wider support.
Using the argument that the US and Britain had toppled Saddam in order to bring democracy, he turned it against them. "There is a decision that was reached by a democratic mechanism and I stand with it ... We have to protect democracy in Iraq and it is democracy which should decide who leads Iraq. We have to respect our Iraqi people," he said.
Tampering with democracy was risky, he insisted. "People will react if they see the rules of democracy being disobeyed. Every politician and every friend of Iraq should not want people to be frustrated," he declared. "Everyone should stick to democratic mechanisms no matter whether they disagree with the person," he added pointedly.
Mr Jaafari also insisted that the historic talks which the US is planning to hold with Iran about the crisis in Iraq should not go over Iraq's head.
"When the two countries are talking about Iraq, Iraq must be a member of those talks," he said. "Definitely. Of course. It's in Iraq's interest, and in the interests of the other two countries that an Iraq representative be there, as long as the subject is Iraq."
Mr Jaafari looked stern and mainly unsmiling, as he fingered yellow-brown worry beads in his left hand during the 40-minute interview in his ornate residence.
He refused to be drawn on whether he felt snubbed by the fact that Ms Rice and Mr Straw invited Adel Abdel Mahdi, the man he beat to the nomination by one vote, to lunch and breakfast during their visit.
Yesterday, in comments to the BBC's Hardtalk programme, Mr Mahdi called on the prime minister to step aside. US and British diplomats have repeatedly hinted in private that they prefer Mr Mahdi, a pro-market economist and less of an Islamist than Mr Jaafari.
The prime minister also refused to agree with some Iraqi politicians who have described their presence as pressure and interference. "I do not see it as pressure," he said.
Washington and London were alarmed by the fact that Mr Jaafari won the nomination thanks to votes from MPs loyal to the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Mr Sadr's supporters have often clashed with US forces.