BAGHDAD - An Iraqi parliamentary committee has failed to finalise an agreement on amending key articles in the constitution, one of the political benchmarks Washington says are important to end sectarian violence.After six months of talks, the constitutional reform committee had been expected to present parliament with a final draft of their recommendations on Tuesday. Committee members said they would ask political leaders to deal with sensitive issues such as sharing IraqÂ’s oil wealth more equitably and ending a ban on former members of Saddam HusseinÂ’s party members holding public office.
“We have agreed on some articles but there are sensitive issues which need an agreement among the political leaders,” said Saleem al-Jubouri, a member of the Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni political bloc in parliament. Jubouri said Sunni Arab and Shi’ite members of the committee disagreed with a Kurdish demand to allow regions to distribute oil income rather than the central government.
Some lawmakers from the ruling ShiÂ’ite community, which was oppressed during SaddamÂ’s rule, are virulently opposed to former Baathists taking up government jobs. Non-Arab Kurds, also persecuted under SaddamÂ’s pan-Arab policies, resist wording on the Arab identity of Iraq.
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Another official in the committee said Arab members -- Shi’ites and Sunnis -- proposed making Kirkuk a separate region and dropping the idea of the referendum, which Kurds would anyway be likely to win. “Of course the Kurds don’t want this because they still want it to be part of their autonomous region,” the official said. ”Only political leaders can decide on this. These are very sensitive issues.”