Division between Shias and Kurds to widen

Two Iraqi boys flash the V-sign in front of a trailer-truck engulfed in flames and smoke following an attack on a US convoy in the northwestern Baghdad neighbourhood of al-Khadra, yesterday. Assailants in a speeding car raked a US military convoy, igniting the truck, two Iraqi witnesses and a US soldier said. PHOTO: AFP

The text failed to refer explicitly to Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), a temporary law which sets out Iraq's political future until a fully elected government takes control, said public works minister Nasreen Barwari.

"As a Kurd and as a woman I am disappointed that it (the UN resolution) does not recognise the TAL as a future basis for a constitution," said Barwari.

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The interim law gives Iraqis their first bill of rights, establishes the first-ever quota in a future parliament for women and enshrines Iraq as a federal state -- a key desire for the country's north-based Kurds.

But influential Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has refused to recognise the interim constitution, which he sees as drawn up by the US-picked Governing Council set up after Saddam Hussein's overthrow in 2003.

The TAL was passed in March by the council, which was dissolved June 1 and a new interim government set up ahead of the June 30 return of a measure of sovereignty by US-led occupation forces.

"That document paves the way for a true democracy," Barwari argued.

"I feel threatened," she said, explaining that the fate of the rights incorporated in the text were "all up in the air and I am not sure that they will be adopted."

The creation of the new government was laid out in the interim constitution so a failure to acknowledge it in the UN resolution cast a doubt over the legality of the Security Council blueprint, she said.

"I am amazed and also I question how the document merits legally."

Kurds fear the country's Shiite majority will try to change the TAL, taking away their rights to self-rule and stripping them of their implicit veto over a permanent constitution, which is to be put before a referendum at the end of 2005.

In contrast, the deputy to former Shia Governing Council member Mohammed Bahr al-Ulum said it was wise not to refer to the constitution in the resolution to avoid any confrontation.

"On the one hand Sistani said it was not good to refer to the TAL and on the other hand the Kurds have threatened to withdraw from the political process if (no reference was made)," Sami el-Askari told AFP.

"I think it is positive if they don't mention the TAL," he said.