Iraq Leaders Negotiate Over Constitution
08/22/2005
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - With a midnight deadline only hours away, Iraq’s political leaders met in search of a compromise over a new constitution. Some lawmakers said differences remained over the role of Islam and women’s rights, but others reported progress in a first negotiating session Monday.
Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said officials had made some progress in a morning negotiating session and that a second afternoon session would be “decisive.” A Shiite television station quoted Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi as saying “major breakthroughs” had been made and the draft would be submitted to parliament Monday.
Other issues holding up agreement were believed to include federalism, the distribution of Iraq’s oil wealth, power sharing questions among the provinces and the role of the Shiite clerical hierarchy.
The initial Aug. 15 deadline was pushed back a week after no agreement was reached. Iraqi officials have insisted they would meet this second deadline and present a final document to the National Assembly, which is dominated by Shiites and Kurds.
Negotiators for all three communities - Shiites, Kurds and Sunni Arabs - met in Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone for a new round of talks Monday. Shiite politician Khaled al-Attiyah said the political leaders “have tentatively agreed that the National Assembly would meet” Monday evening.
Parliament will either receive the draft of the new charter or vote on setting a new deadline. If it doesn’t agree on either, the legislature will have to dissolve.
But hours after Monday’s negotiations started, prospects for compromise were uncertain.
A Kurdish member of the drafting committee, Abdul-Khaleq Zangana, said there were problems with “the role of religion and women’s rights.” He would not elaborate but predicted “either an extension - and this is not good - or parliament dissolves - and this is difficult.”
Shiite lawmaker Bahaa al-Araji accused the Kurds and secular allies of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of trying to “curb the political process” to bring down the government and force new elections.
“If an agreement is not reached, we will hand a draft and win slight majority in a vote and this is our right,” al-Araji said.
Another Shiite lawmaker, Mohammed Baqir al-Bahadli, also spoke of differences over the role of Islam, including Kurdish demands that laws be considered constitutional only if they agree with the interpretations of all Islamic sects.
Shiites want the right to apply their own interpretation to fellow Shiites.
“There is a tendency to postpone for a week or a month, and this is not in the interest of the (Shiite) alliance,” al-Bahadli said. “But we can reach a solution today if the Americans put pressure.”
Such talk of differences between the Shiites and Kurds were significant. Sunni Arab negotiators had complained of being sidelined in the final week of talks and that Shiites and Kurds were cutting deals excluding them. But if the Shiites and Kurds are citing major differences between them, then prospects for a breakthrough would appear even bleaker.
Government spokesman Laith Kubba said there were two options if political leaders fail to complete the draft: amend the interim constitution again and extend the deadline or dissolve parliament.
On Sunday, Sunni representatives on the drafting committee appealed to the United States and United Nations to prevent Shiites and Kurds from pushing a draft through parliament without their consent, warning it would only worsen the crisis in Iraq.
Underscoring the crisis, much of the country lost electricity Monday due to an attack on a major power line between Beiji and Baghdad last week. The power shortage forced a halt in oil exports from southern Iraq because crude could not be pumped into tankers, Iraqi and foreign oil officials said.
Exports through the country’s other export outlet in the north have been long interrupted due to sabotage on the pipeline and virtually all of Iraq’s exports - about 1.5 million barrels a day - go through the southern ports.
A Sunni backlash on the constitution could complicate the U.S. strategy of using the political process to lure members of the minority away from the Sunni-dominated insurgency. Washington hopes that a constitution, followed by general elections in December, will enable the United States and its international partners to begin removing troops next year.
Shiites and Kurds have enough seats in parliament to win approval for a draft without the Sunni Arabs. But the Sunni minority could scuttle the constitution when voters decide whether to ratify it in the Oct. 15 referendum. Under current rules, the constitution would be defeated if it is opposed by two-thirds of the voters in three of Iraq’s 18 provinces. Sunni Arabs form the majority in at least four.
In other developments:
- Eight policemen and three civilians died Monday when their bus was ambushed near the Taramiyah police station, just north of Baghdad, police Capt. Karim al-Selman said.
- Eight police commandos were killed in a car bomb explosion at a checkpoint in Baghdad, police said Monday.
- The U.S. military said Monday that two soldiers died when their vehicle overturned during a military operation near Tal Afar. At least 1,868 U.S. troops have died since the Iraq war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
- Four Iraqi policeman were killed when a suicide car bomb slammed into a police checkpoint in Baghdad, said Col. Adnan Abdul-Rahman, the Interior Ministry spokesman.
- Police in Baghdad said they had found the bodies of six unidentified men in various parts of the capital. All were handcuffed, bound and shot in the head.
There has been speculation recently that vigilante death squads have been operating around the country. Some analysts have warned that the bloodshed demonstrates the alternative to a constitutional power-sharing deal would be a gradual descent into civil war.