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BAGHDAD, Aug 21 (AFP) - 3h33 - Kurdish leaders
offered to compromise over Iraq's constitution but
rejected Islam as the main source of law in the new
charter, even as the United States dropped its
opposition to a strong role for religion.
The Kurds had been keen for language to be included
in the new charter allowing them the right to
self-determination, which would effectively allow
them to secede from Iraq at some point in the
future.
But Mahmud Othman, a Kurdish member of the
constitution committee, told AFP Saturday that Kurds
could bend.
"If we see that our right to self-determination
becomes the only obstacle in finalising the
constitution, our parliament will be flexible and
not be an obstacle," he said.
The conciliatory announcement appears aimed at
helping Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite negotiators
finally forge an agreement on a new draft
constitution after weeks of exhausting talks and a
previous missed deadline.
But in another possible hitch to the already
marathon process, Iraqi leaders were becoming
engulfed in a debate over whether to make Islam
"the" main source of legislation or just "a" main
source.
Sources close to negotiations said the debate was
triggered after the United States surprisingly
dropped its opposition to enshrining Islam as Iraq's
main source of legislation.
They said the US move was aimed at securing
agreement on the text of a new constitution by the
Monday deadline.
Washington is determined to see the date met after
the first deadline was missed last Monday, fearing
that any delay in the political process will benefit
Sunni Arab insurgents.
"Last night's talks had a surprise element -- the
Americans appeared to give in to the demand from
various Islamic groups that Islam be the main source
of legislation," one source told AFP, adding that US
ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was present at the
negotiations.
But Othman said the Kurdish leaders will oppose
moves to make Islam the main source of legislation.
"We will oppose this as much as we can," he
stressed. "This is politics... we believe that the
constitution should not impose any ideology on the
people and help develop a free society."
The role of Islam in lawmaking has proved a heavily
divisive issue among negotiators, with leaders of
Iraq's Shiite majority insisting religion be
considered the main legal foundation, and that
clerics be given political roles.
But Kurds and other secularist groups argue it would
harm women's rights and Iraq's secular tradition.
One Western official said "no one is looking to
establish an Islamic state. The intent is to ensure
that Islam is respected in addition to other
established rights."
A Western diplomat also played down the significance
of a strong role for religion in the new
constitution, adding that an Islam-based
constitution was normal even for secular states in
the region.
"(The issue has) no real jurisprudential
significance, it's more symbolic," he said on
condition of anonymity.
The Shiites and Kurds have a comfortable majority in
parliament and observers have speculated that they
may forge a compromise on issues such as federalism
and oil revenues over the heads of Sunni negotiators
in order to meet Monday's deadline.
But a Sunni member warned that such a deal would be
rejected by voters from the disenchanted former
elite in a referendum scheduled for October.
"The people of Iraq will defeat a federal
constitution in the October referendum," Saleh al-Motlag
said.
"We are against the principle of federalism because
we want the country to be centrally governed."
Iraq's interim law says the charter fails if
two-thirds of the voters in any three provinces
reject the text in the referendum.
Sunni Arabs form a majority in Al-Anbar, Ninevah and
Salaheddin provinces, and have a strong presence in
Tamim.
Meanwhile, Ashraf Qazi, special Iraq representative
of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said he opposed
a decision of the Iraqi government to reinstate the
death penalty.
The government has announced that three members of
the Al-Qaeda affiliate group Ansar al-Sunna will be
sentenced to death for kidnapping policemen and
raping Iraqi women.
US President George W. Bush, meanwhile, called for
perseverance in Iraq.
"We must finish the task that our troops have given
their lives for and honor their sacrifice by
completing their mission," Bush said in his weekly
radio address, though he made no mention of the
constitutional wrangling underway.
"They know that if we do not confront these evil men
abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own
cities and streets," he said.
And Prince Andrew paid a brief visit Saturday to
British troops serving in southern Iraq, as well as
to an Iraqi naval base, Britain's domestic Press
Association news agency said.
Andrew, the second son of Queen Elizabeth II, and a
helicopter pilot in the Falklands war, mingled with
members of the Royal Irish Regiment, of which he is
honorary colonel in chief, at the Shaibah logistics
base.
He also paid respects at memorials to British
soldiers killed in Iraq, before dropping into the
Iraq naval base at Umm Qasr where he met the deputy
operations commander and inspected patrol boats.
Rebels killed 11 across Iraq, including one US
soldier, taking the US military death toll in Iraq
since the invasion to 1,857, according to an AFP
tally based on Pentagon figures.
AFP
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