Impasse on Iraq charter continues as second deadline looms

Laith Kubba, spokesman for Shi’ite Islamist Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, said, ‘‘They have two options: The TAL (interim constitution) can be extended for another week… or if there was no extension and they didn’t hand in a draft… the National Assembly would be dissolved and the government becomes a caretaker government.’’

The legislature—elected in January under a timetable laid down in the US-sponsored Transitional Administrative Law (TAL)—last Monday voted unanimously to extend the August 15 deadline for completion of a draft constitution by a week to August 22.

Failure to meet the new deadline could provoke new elections and, effectively, a return to the drawing board for the entire constitutional process. If a charter is agreed, however, a December election is due to return a Parliament with full powers for a full term.

Secular-minded Kurds were grumbling about apparent US concessions to ruling Shi’ites that they said could turn Iraq into an Islamic state. Sunni negotiators, brought in last month to Parliament’s constitutional drafting committee from outside the legislature to ensure a representative national consensus, say they will not accept a third option—to submit a draft with some passages left for Parliament itself to complete. That would hand the decisive say to the Shi’ites and Kurds in the chamber. —Reuters