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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The United States is
pressuring Kurds to accept demands of majority
Shiites and Sunnis on the role of Islam in
government in order to reach agreement on a draft
constitution, a Kurdish official taking part in the
negotiations said early Saturday.
Those demands would give the Muslim religion a
bigger role in Iraqi society at the expense of
women's rights and civil liberties, said the
official, who refused to allow his name to be used
because of the sensitivity of the issue.
He told The Associated Press that Kurdish leaders
who support more secular policies are bowing to
American pressure - dropping among other things
their demand for self-determination, or the right to
secede.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said he was not aware of
results of the latest round of talks, which started
Friday and were continuing into Saturday morning. If
the Kurdish claims are true, it would appear the
United States wants to please the Shiite majority in
order to get a draft charter finished by the Monday
night deadline.
In Washington, the Bush administration canceled a
planned telephone briefing for reporters because of
what a State Department official described as
intense and busy negotiations in Baghdad that
include U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
Kurds make up between 15 and 20 percent of Iraq's
population, compared to an estimated 60 percent for
Shiites.
Yet many Kurds believe the Americans owe them a debt
because the Kurds allowed U.S. military officials to
operate in their self-ruled territory before the
2003 invasion of Iraq and Kurdish militia fought
alongside U.S. troops during the opening weeks of
the conflict.
Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders have been holding
lengthy talks for days trying to draft the country's
new constitution to meet the deadline. Shiite and
Sunni Arabs, who make about 80 percent of Iraq's
population, have been demanding a greater role for
Islam in the state.
The Kurdish official said the Americans were
pressuring the Kurds into accepting Shiite demands
calling for all Iraqis to be subject to the
religious traditions of their sect in civil affairs.
This would likely disappoint secular women, because
according to Islam, men can easily divorce them and
women receive only half of what men would inherit.
The official said the Kurds had no objection to
declaring Islam as the state religion but wanted it
as one source of legislation. He said it now
appeared that Islam would be a main source and no
law could contradict its rules.
U.S. officials have in the past changed strategy in
Iraq at the insistence of the powerful Shiite
clergy, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
In 2003, the Americans were pressing for a
constitutional committee of experts to draft a new
national charter but shelved the plan after al-Sistani
insisted it be written by elected officials.
The former U.S. governor of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer,
had proposed that members of parliament be chosen by
a series of regional caucuses. That idea also was
scrapped at al-Sistani's insistence, and elections
were held instead last January.
AP
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