BAGHDAD, 21 August 2005 — US diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, negotiators said yesterday as they raced to meet a 48-hour deadline to draft a constitution under intense US pressure.
US diplomats, who have insisted the constitution must enshrine ideals of equal rights and democracy, declined comment.
Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish negotiators all said there was accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before.
But a secular Kurdish politician said Kurds opposed making Islam “the,” not “a,” main source of law — changing current wording — and subjecting all legislation to a religious test.
“We understand the Americans have sided with the Shiites,” he said. “It’s shocking. It doesn’t fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state... I can’t believe that’s what the Americans really want or what the American people want.”
Washington, with 140,000 troops still in Iraq, has insisted Iraqis are free to govern themselves but made clear it will not approve the kind of clerical rule seen in Iran, a state US President George W. Bush describes as “evil”. US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has been guiding intensive meetings since Parliament averted its own dissolution on Monday by giving constitution drafters another week to resolve crucial differences over regional autonomy and division of oil revenues. Failing to finish by midnight on Aug. 22 could provoke new elections and, effectively, a return to the drawing board for the entire constitutional process.
But sources close to the negotiations warned that the surprise shift of policy was as likely to complicate as to help the talks as the negotiators remained deeply divided on the issue.
“This could change a lot of things and I think we may miss the deadline again as not all groups will agree for Islam to be the main source,” a source said.
But a further extension may be more likely, as Washington insists the charter is key to its strategy to undermine the revolt and leave a new Iraqi government largely to fend for itself after US troops go home.
Yesterday, Shiite negotiators offered a new proposal on distribution of Iraq’s vast oil wealth in hopes of breaking the deadlock on the new constitution. Shiite negotiator Khaled Al-Attiyah gave no details of the proposal but expressed hope it would be accepted by the Kurds and Sunni Arabs. He said Kurds and Shiites have agreed on most of the points of disagreement but the Sunnis were still balking at proposals to transform Iraq into a federated state.
Earlier, Sunni negotiator Saleh Al-Mutlaq said negotiations had stalled due to “deep differences.” He said Shiites were demanding that the new charter explicitly state that the decrees of the Shiite religious leadership in Najaf were sacred, something both the Sunnis and Kurds oppose.
Al-Mutlaq said the Kurds were demanding that provincial governments should control over both “discovered and undiscovered resources,” which would give their self-governing region a significant slice of Iraq’s oil wealth. Shiite lawmaker Saad Jawad Kandil said that in addition to questions regarding the division of Iraq’s potentially vast oil revenues, another issue that had popped up unexpectedly was the question of whether federal units would be authorized to maintain relations with foreign states.
