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Sunnis rejoin constitution process { July 25 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_international.asp?id=85611http://www.metronews.ca/reuters_international.asp?id=85611
Iraq Sunnis to end constitution committee boycott
Monday, July 25, 2005 7:04:04 AM ET
By Peter Graff
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Sunni Arabs said on Monday they would return to the bargaining table to hammer out a constitution for Iraq, ending a standoff that threatened to torpedo the political process amid worsening bloodshed.
With just days left before the draft constitution was due, the Sunnis had stormed out of the negotiations last week after one of their committee members was gunned down in front of a restaurant.
But they said they would call off their boycott after their demands for better security and a probe into the assassination were met at crisis talks on Monday.
"We will definitely return tomorrow," said Saleh Mutlaq, spokesman for the Sunni umbrella group Iraqi National Dialogue, which represents slain committee member Mujbil al-Sheikh Isa.
Abdul Nasser al-Jenabi, a committee member from another Sunni group, also said the demands had been met. The government announced the compromise in a statement signed by parliament speaker Hajem al-Hassani.
Political deadlock has done little to stem the bloodshed.
Two suicide car bombers struck police checkpoints in Baghdad on Monday morning, killing at least 15 people, while funerals were held for some of the 25 victims of a huge truck bomb on Sunday. The U.S. military said 40 people were killed in Sunday's attack, although police did not confirm that figure.
Iraq's government and its U.S. supporters had hoped the presence of Sunnis on the constitution-writing team would defuse the insurgency led by members of the 20-percent minority that dominated Iraq under ousted president Saddam Hussein.
More Sunni members were drafted on to the committee last month. Its other members are mainly Shi'ites and Kurds elected to parliament in a January vote when most Sunnis stayed at home because of a boycott or fear of reprisals.
TOUGH NEGOTIATIONS
The end of the Sunni boycott will allow politicians to breathe a sigh of relief, but negotiations over the constitution are far from over.
The constitution text is due by Aug. 15, but Aug. 1 is the deadline for announcing a 6-month extension if the committee has not succeeded in drawing up a draft of the charter.
A Kurdish committee member said that, even if the Sunnis rejoined, a compromise text remained a difficult goal.
"To tell you the truth, I very much doubt at this stage that we are going to have a document ready by the end of this month," Mahmoud Othman told Reuters.
The sides are divided above all on issues of federalism -- how to share power and resources in areas such as the mainly Kurdish north and the Shi'ite south, where local leaders want autonomy from Baghdad and control of oil wealth.
Washington says failing to reach a compromise on time and announcing an extension would be a mistake, because the political process would lose momentum. But with the deadline looming, Othman said some were privately mulling it:
"Nobody likes to talk about requesting an extension because no one wants to be the one who is responsible for asking for it. But everyone is thinking about it."
Insurgent attacks, especially suicide car bombings, rose after the government took power in April, and have intensified again in the past 2 weeks, killing more than 200 people in Baghdad and towns to the south.
On Monday, a suicide bomber in a minivan blew up his bomb at a checkpoint near the Sadir hotel in the city center at dawn, and gunfire was heard shortly afterwards.
Police sources said six people were killed and 16 wounded, mostly Iraqi employees of a security firm guarding the building. The Defense Ministry said 12 people were killed.
Just over an hour later a bomber struck Ansour Square, near an entrance to the heavily fortified Green Zone, the government and diplomatic compound, police sources said. A source at Yarmouk hospital said it had received three dead and six wounded from that second attack.
Those bombs followed Sunday's huge blast, the worst in more than a week, when a suicide truck bomb packed with 500 lbs (220 kg) of explosives blew up near a police station.
The U.S. Army, citing Iraqi police estimates, put the death toll as high as 40. Police sources told Reuters 25 were killed. (Additional reporting by Lutfi Abu Oun, Waleed Ibrahim, Mussab al-Khairalla and Luke Baker)
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(c) Reuters 2005.
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