Iraq's
parliament set a new deadline of Aug. 22 for
drafting the country's constitution to give
negotiators one week beyond today's U.S.-imposed
deadline to work out their differences.
"Although all sides are disappointed that we didn't
meet the deadline that we had set, it's not the end
of the world,'' Qubad Talabani, who represents the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Washington and is
the son of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, said in a
telephone interview. "We are going to use this week
to try to reach a compromise on the issues that are
outstanding.'' |
Qubad Talabani, who represents the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan in Washington
Photo: Kurd Net Archive |
|
Iraq's majority Shiite, minority Sunni Muslim and
Kurdish drafters of the charter had reached a
tentative agreement on issues ranging from oil
revenues to the country's name, while postponing
decisions on the most difficult issues, including
the role of the Islamic religion, women's rights and
self- determination for different regions inside
Iraq, such as the Kurdish northern provinces, the
Associated Press reported.
"It's probably a very good thing that the drafters
had the courage to ask for more time,'' Clark
Lombardi, a professor at the University of Seattle
who specializes in Islamic and constitutional law,
said in a telephone interview from Seattle. "To go
forward without having issues of such breadth and
depth resolved would have been problematic.''
Kurdistan
Iraq's Kurdish minority has controlled the oil-rich
northern provinces of Sulaymaniyah, Arbil and Dohuk,
since the 1991 Gulf War. The region, known as
Kurdistan, has been ruled since 1992 by elected
officials.
The degree to which Islamic law will govern women's
rights has been another divisive issue, and the
Iraqi Women's League, one of the oldest women's
groups in Iraq, has said it won't support a
democratic state that is based on religion.
The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush
had been pushing for the document to be completed by
today, saying that a delay to the political process
might energize Iraq's Sunni-led insurgency. Iraq's
minority Sunni Muslims benefited under the regime of
former dictator Saddam Hussein.
U.S. President George W. Bush said Aug. 11 the
drafting of the constitution is a "critical step''
for Iraq that is one of the milestones for
establishment of a democratic government there, one
of the key U.S. goals. The administration has "made
it clear that we believe that constitution can be
and should be agreed upon by August 15th,'' Bush
said.
Sunni Muslim Arabs, who live mostly in the west,
which doesn't have oil, are pushing for a strong
central government.
"This is more writing on the wall that the Sunnis
are just going to be pushed off to the side and
further marginalized,'' Charles Pena, an analyst at
the Cato Institute, said in a telephone interview.
"The Sunnis understand that everything is moving
toward an Iraq in which the Shia have all the power
and they are just marginalized and the Kurds are
just going to go off on their own.''
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