A row was brewing in Iraq on Thursday after a top Shi’ite leader spoke out against amending the country’s federal system, a main demand by minority Sunni Arabs who fear being denied their share of oil revenues.
The comment came as Iraq’s political parties prepare to hear the final results of landmark elections held almost a month ago, before they start jostling to form the first permanent government since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, head of the leading Supreme Council of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (SCIRI), outlined the priorities for the next administration in an address to mark the Eid al-Adha holiday, extracts of which were broadcast on Thursday on the public Iraqia television channel.
He listed ”the need not to touch certain elements of the Constitution,” among other factors.
”The question of the formation of autonomous regions cannot feature in any bargaining,” Hakim said.
The concept of dividing the country into autonomous regions is enshrined in the Constitution, adopted after a national referendum on October 15.
But Sunni Arabs fear a federal system will further split Iraq, separating the oil-rich Kurdish north and oil-rich Shi’ite south from the relatively poor Sunni-populated centre.
Instead, they want to limit the scope of federalism to the autonomy granted to three Kurdish provinces in the north of the country.
When the text was adopted, the Sunnis — who enjoyed a disproportionate share of power under the former Saddam regime — won an understanding that it could be amended in the future, and they are clinging to this promise.
”There is an article in the Constitution concerning the amendment and we are determined to change all articles that risk leading to a division of Iraq,” said Adnan Dulaimi, who heads the National Concord Front, a grouping of Sunni parties that ran in the December 15 elections.
”We support giving more power to the provinces to reinforce decentralisation, but the creation of regions that are autonomous of Baghdad in the centre and in the south threatens the unity of the country,” he said, in comments broadcast on As-Sharquia, a private television station.
”We reject this and we continue to defend the unity of Iraq.”
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, earlier this week alluded to the probable need for changes in the landmark charter that lays down a democratic future for the post-Saddam Iraq.
”The Constitution will likely need to be amended in the coming year to broaden support,” Khalilzad wrote in an article published on Monday in the Wall Street Journal.
Political activity has largely been put on hold as Iraq marks the Eid al-Adha holiday, but it is set to resume in earnest from Sunday.
The electoral commission is expected, as early as Sunday, to release the conclusion of a probe into allegations of election fraud by Sunni-backed and secular parties that has delayed the announcement of the final results.
Initial results from the general election suggested Shi’ite-backed religious parties and their Kurdish allies would be returned to power.
In other developments, former Iraqi foreign minister and deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz may have less than a month to live after suffering a cerebral embolism, his lawyer told a newspaper on Thursday.
Aziz turned himself over to United States forces in April 2003 and has been questioned several times by judges of the Iraqi High Tribunal trying Saddam and top aides for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
In ongoing unrest, US soldiers battled with a group of insurgents south west of Baghdad on Wednesday, killing six — two with explosives strapped to them — and wounding a seventh who was later detained, the military said late on Wednesday.
Separately, US-led forces found seven corpses on Wednesday at the Rustimiyah sewage plant, which handles waste from Baghdad.
And, in the restive central Iraqi province of al-Anbar, a group of Iraqi soldiers and US marines found what they described as their biggest stash yet of mortars, artillery rounds, rockets and other explosives during a three-day sweep that ended on Wednesday. – AFP
