BAGHDAD, Oct 12: Iraqi leaders amended a draft constitution on Wednesday just three days before it goes to a referendum, but many Sunnis rejected the compromise Parliament convened in celebratory evening session to endorse minor amendments and additions to the charter and to confirm a broader review will follow December general elections.
Televised live from the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, the chairman of parliament’s constitutional drafting committee read out the amendments to be incorporated, without a vote, to the assembly and a line-up of state officials and party leaders.
Wording was added to emphasise the “unity” of Iraq and the status of Arabic as an official language in Kurdistan. Former members of Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated Baath party were assured that mere membership, at a time when many joined simply to protect careers, was not a ground for prosecution.
Anticipating that Sunnis will be better represented in the next parliament, than in the present one they mostly boycotted, the assembly will set up a committee after the election to spend four months reviewing the constitution, which could lead to a new referendum.
US ROLE: President Jalal Talabani, who praised the “tireless” role of US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, confirmed after a meeting of senior figures that they all endorsed Tuesday’s accord to make minor changes to the charter already distributed to millions of households. Officials say voters will be informed by television.
“I hope this is the beginning of a new kind of cooperation among all Iraqis,” Talabani, a Kurd, told a news conference.
“The only book that cannot be changed is the Koran.”
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said: “The Americans played a mediating and facilitating role.”
Khalilzad, previously envoy to his native Afghanistan, has worked for the past few months to keep Iraqis to a timetable for electing a fully empowered parliament that was set down in an interim constitution drafted with U.S. officials last year.
President George W. Bush, criticised at home over the costs of the Iraq war as the death toll among US troops approaches 2,000, is clearly keen to show progress toward stability.
A White House spokesman greeted a “positive step” and said it would encourage more Iraqis to participate in politics.
But militants have vowed to wreck a political system, installed by occupation, that has brought the Shi’ite majority to power.
SUNNIS SPLIT: The changes won the support of the Iraqi Islamic Party, one of several claiming to speak for Sunni. Since none have fought open elections, their relative strengths are unclear.
“We agreed Iraqis should say ‘Yes’,” the party’s general secretary Tareq al-Hashimi told a news conference, saying his members aimed to negotiate amendments in the new parliament.
One Islamist militant group declared him an “apostate”.
And fellow Sunni politicians remained opposed.
“This is a ploy to persuade people not to vote ‘No’ to the ethnic and sectarian racist constitution,” the Iraqi National Dialogue said in a statement of behalf of 19 Sunni groups.
