Iraq constitution no nearer

BAGHDAD - Iraqi politicians have failed to conclude negotiations on a draft constitution and it remains unclear when a final text may be printed, less than five weeks before a referendum, Iraqi and UN officials said.

"We don't know when they'll finish," Nicholas Haysom, the United Nations official charged with the printing, said. "We'd like it as soon as possible."

Last week, Haysom said he expected the National Assembly formally to endorse a final text on Sunday, after making an amendment in talks that followed parliament's adoption of the draft on August 28. Any later, he had said, and it would be a "challenge" to get five million copies out to the electorate.

But Saad Qandeel, a legislator from the Shi'ite majority, said parliament had neither discussed nor signed off on the draft on Sunday and that negotiation on three points would continue, possibly for several days.

The Shi'ite-led government and its US sponsors have voiced concern that rejection of the draft by the once dominant Sunni Arab minority could sink the constitution; it will be vetoed if two thirds of voters in three provinces vote 'No'.

"We want the Iraqi people to say 'Yes' to this constitution, and there are some parties who have a say in the result," Qandeel said. "They have objections and we must listen to them."

An amendment to satisfy Sunni demands about the wording of a passage on the Arab identity of Iraq, apparently accepted by non-Arab Kurds last week, was still under discussion, he said.

Kurds were pressing a claim to be guaranteed both posts of deputy prime minister and Shi'ites had raised the issue of control of water resources, asking for these to be clearly placed under the authority of the central government.

Most Shi'ites live in the south, downstream of Kurds and Sunnis, along Iraq's two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.

- REUTERS