Baghdad, Iraq – Iraqi leaders moved to the brink of agreement on a new constitution Sunday, solving several difficult issues but still struggling with the potentially explosive questions of Shiite autonomy and the role of Islam in family disputes and the judiciary.
The Iraqis said they were hoping to finish the constitution by the end of today, a deadline they have already extended once. They scheduled a meeting of the National Assembly for this evening, when they hoped to present a finished constitution for approval.
Negotiators said they had agreed on a formula to share Iraq’s oil wealth, which had been one of the most difficult issues. The agreement was being shepherded with the help of U.S. officials and especially U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. After more than 12 hours of talks Sunday, a senior U.S. official said a deal was almost in hand.
“It looks like all the major issues are resolved, and we hope tomorrow we will work out the remaining details,” the official said.
But a number of important obstacles remained, and Iraqi leaders, including Laith Kubba, an aide to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, still raised the possibility that they would have to extend the deadline once again.
The most sensitive of unresolved issues revolved around the role of Islam, which will be designated as “a main source of legislation” in the new constitution. Two critical questions have not been resolved: whether to allow clerics to sit on the Iraqi Supreme Court and how much authority clerics will have in resolving family disputes, such as divorce and inheritance.
Maintaining secular authority over family matters is especially important to secular Iraqi women, who fear that Islamic judges will strip them of the rights they now enjoy under Iraqi law.
A potentially harder problem was the isolation of Sunni leaders, who have been largely excluded from the deliberations over the past week.
The constitution has been written almost entirely by Shiite and Kurdish leaders, who said they had decided to leave out the Sunnis because they were being too inflexible.
The support of the Sunni leaders is not necessary to complete the constitution. Because the Sunnis largely boycotted the election in January, they have only a handful of legislators in the 275-member National Assembly, which must approve it.
On Sunday, Sunni leaders complained of being locked out of the drafting process. They demanded that they be included and if they were not, that the constitution be defeated.
The agreement of the Sunni participants is viewed as crucial in helping to placate the Sunni Arab population, which formed the backbone of support for Saddam Hussein’s government and provides the bulk of the manpower for the insurgency.
Sunnis make up about 20 percent of Iraq’s population.
Shiite and Kurdish leaders said that after they agree on a draft today, they will show it to the Sunni leaders.
The Sunnis have been adamant in their opposition to granting autonomy to the Shiite- majority areas in southern Iraq. They argue that granting autonomy to the Shiites, along with the Kurds who already have it, could cripple the Iraqi state.