Two years after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, a legitimately elected provisional government is taking power in Iraq. The appointment this week of the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as president and the Shia Islamist Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister sent a powerful message that the country has turned the page on its oppressive past.

But Iraq's emerging democracy is fragile and the risks of the new Iraq sliding into sectarian conflict remain real. Reaching out to the Sunni minority - dominant under the old regime but now represented by only 17 members on a 275-seat national assembly - must be a government priority.