BAGHDAD — Under U.S. pressure, Iraq’s presidential council signed off Wednesday on a measure paving the way for provincial elections by the fall, a major step toward easing sectarian rifts.
The decision by the council of the country’s president and two vice presidents lays the groundwork for voters to choose leaders of the 18 provinces, opening the door to greater Sunni representation in regional governments.
Many Sunnis boycotted the last election for provincial officials, in January 2005, enabling Shiites and Kurds to win a disproportionate share of power in areas with substantial Sunni populations.
That helped fuel the Sunni-led insurgency and the wave of sectarian bloodletting that drove the country to the brink of civil war before President Bush rushed nearly 30,000 U.S. reinforcements to Iraq last year.
The council’s decision came two days after Vice President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad to press Iraqi leaders to overcome their differences and take advantage of a lull in violence to make progress in power-sharing deals.
A spokesman for the biggest Sunni bloc, Saleem Abdullah, said Cheney pushed hard for progress on the provincial elections as well as a long- stalled measure to share oil wealth.
Although details must be worked out before a vote is scheduled, the council’s decision Wednesday makes it likely a vote can take place this year.
As the war enters its sixth year, the number of attacks has dropped with the extra U.S. troops, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaeda in Iraq and a cease-fire by Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
But political progress has been slow.
The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, told CNN that “we’re in a good, better, place in terms of security” than a year ago.
But Petraeus added that “progress is tenuous” and that “there are innumerable challenges out there.”
As a sign of the ongoing threat, a female suicide bomber detonated an explosives vest packed with ball bearings Wednesday near a bus terminal in Balad Ruz northeast of Baghdad, killing at least three people, according to police.
To the north, U.S. troops accidentally killed three Iraqi policemen and wounded another, the military said, the latest in a series of friendly-fire incidents.
