Iraq’s Sunnis moving to block draft constitution

Sunni politicians, who have negotiated over the constitution for the past two months, reacted angrily to the Shi’ite-Kurdish plan, but there was little they could do to stop it.

‘‘This will complicate an already complicated situation,’’ Saleh al-Mutlak, one of the main Sunni negotiators, told reporters. ‘‘It pulls us away from reconciliation.’’

Having largely boycotted elections in January, Sunnis have just less than 20 seats in the 275-member National Assembly and only modest representation on the constitution-drafting team.

Shi’ite negotiators, who have in the past cast doubt on how much the Sunnis on the constitution-writing team represented their community, said they thought the text would be accepted by all factions in Parliament, including Sunnis.

But before the parliamentary vote later on Monday, Sunnis were plotting their next move, which involves becoming more engaged in the political process in order to block Shi’ite-Kurdish autonomy aspirations.

Sunni Muslim imams and politicians have been urging Sunnis to register to vote in the referendum, having perhaps sensed that failure was looming in the constitutional negotiations. —Reuters