 Iraq President Jalal
Talabani , left, meets with Saleh al-Motlaq , right, a Sunni member
of the constitution drafting committee and a group of Sunni Arab leaders on Thursday August 25, 2005 in the
heavily fortified Green Zone area in Baghdad, Iraq.
(Reuters) |
|
The speaker of Iraq's parliament announced a
one-day extension early Friday in talks on the new constitution - a fourth
attempt to win Sunni Arab approval. But he said that if no agreement is
reached, the document would bypass parliament and be decided in an Oct.
15 referendum.
Shiite leaders signaled they had lost patience with protracted
negotiating and wanted to refer the draft approved by them and the Kurds
last Monday to the electorate. With repeated missed deadlines and no sign
of compromise, a process designed to bring the country's disparate ethnic,
cultural and religious groups closer together appeared instead to be
pushing them further apart.
A Shiite power play would undercut one of Washington's goals for the
constitution: to invigorate a political process that will lure disaffected
Sunni Arabs away from the
Sunni-dominated insurgency so that U.S. and other foreign troops can begin
to go home next year.
The Bush administration, however, expressed optimism that an agreement
would be reached.
"I think if Iraqi leaders say that they need a few days more to
complete a historic document that will lay a foundation for a new and free
Iraq, I think that that is certainly understandable," State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack said after the delay was announced.
Parliament speaker Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni who was elected on the
mostly Sunni ticket headed by former President Ghazi al-Yawer, also said
he remained hopeful of a deal.
"We found that time was late and we saw that the matters will need
another day in order to reach results that please everyone," al-Hassani
said on national television shortly after the midnight deadline. The
Friday session was an attempt to give the Shiites time to respond to
proposals tabled at a late-night meeting for which they did not show up.
Al-Hassani agreed that no parliamentary vote was required since the
assembly fulfilled its legal obligations by accepting the Shiite and
Kurdish-approved draft on Monday.
"If we will not be able to reach agreements in the end, this
constitution is going to be presented to the Iraqis in an Oct. 15
referendum," al-Hassani said. "Legally we do not need the parliament to
vote on the draft, but we need only a consensus so that all the Iraqis
will say yes to the constitution."
Monday was the second deadline which the
legislature granted after the drafting committee failed to meet the Aug. 15
date set in the interim constitution.
(China Daily) |