Sunnis end boycott of talks on constitution: Eight killed in Iraq bombings
BAGHDAD, July 25: Sunnis said on Monday they would rejoin talks to hammer out a new constitution for Iraq, in the hope of rescuing a political process that has been severely strained by unrelenting bloodshed. The Sunnis walked out of the talks last week after one of their committee members was gunned down near a restaurant.
At crisis talks on Monday they secured pledges of better security and a probe into the assassination.
“We will definitely return tomorrow,” said Saleh Mutlaq, spokesman for the Sunni umbrella group Iraqi National Dialogue, which slain committee member Mujbil al-Sheikh Isa belonged to. Abdul Nasser al-Jenabi, a committee member from another Sunni group, also said its demands had been met.
The speaker of parliament announced the compromise in signed statement.
Fifteen Sunni members were drafted on to the committee last month, joining members drawn from a parliament mainly made up of Shias and Kurds — elected in a January vote when most Sunnis stayed at home because of a boycott or fear of reprisals.
US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said a constitution was “important in terms of weakening the insurgency [and] winning the population away from Al Qaeda and the other foreign terrorists who come here to kill and maim and use Iraqis as cannon fodder for their larger agenda”.
The end of the Sunni boycott will allow politicians to breathe a sigh of relief, but negotiations over the constitution are far from over. A draft is due by mid-August, but August 1 is the deadline for announcing a six-month extension if the committee decides it needs more time.
Kurdish committee member Mahmoud Othman said that even if the Sunnis rejoined, “I very much doubt at this stage that we are going to have a document ready by the end of this month”.
The sides are divided above all on issues of federalism — how to share power and resources in areas such as the mainly Kurdish north and the Shia south, where local leaders want autonomy from Baghdad and control of oil wealth.
SUICIDE ATTACKS: The Iraqi capital was hit by twin suicide car bombs on Monday that killed at least eight people as Australian Prime Minister John Howard, a top US ally in Iraq, made a surprise visit to Baghdad.
The latest bombings came less than 24 hours after a massive truck blew up outside a police station in the capital on Sunday.
Monday’s first bombing targeted the Al Sadeer Hotel in central Baghdad, which is used by foreign security personnel, an interior ministry official said.
Most of the six killed and 16 wounded were local security guards working at the hotel which has been bombed before.
Just over two hours later, another car bomb targeted a police commando patrol under the Harithiyah bridge in the west of the city, killing two policemen and wounding 11.
The attacks followed Sunday’s suicide truck bombing against a police station in the southeast of the capital that killed 40 people.
The explosion, caused by 220 kilograms of explosives, left a huge crater in the street, damaged or destroyed 22 cars, and set ablaze 10 shops.—AFP
