Kurds Reject Key Parts of Proposed Iraq Constitution

[La_Serpiente]

Kurds Reject Key Parts of Proposed Iraq Constitution

BAGHDAD, Feb. 20 -- Kurdish leaders are refusing to accept key provisions of an interim Iraqi constitution drafted by the Bush administration and instead are demanding far broader autonomy, including the right to control military forces in Kurdish areas and the freedom to reject laws passed by the national government, Kurdish officials said Friday.

The position adopted by the Kurds, an ethnic group that accounts for about 20 percent of Iraq's predominantly Arab population, threatens to block approval of the interim constitution by Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council and deal another setback to the Bush administration's effort to create a sovereign transitional government. Arab leaders oppose almost all of the Kurds' demands, which would effectively preserve an autonomous Kurdish mini-state in northern Iraq with its own army, laws, tax system, judiciary and parliament.

Although the Bush administration also opposes many of the Kurdish demands, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, has spent the past week holding urgent meetings with Kurdish and Arab politicians to forge a compromise. But neither side appears willing to make substantial concessions, according to Kurdish and Arab officials. Iraqi Arabs contend that the Kurds should not receive special privileges; Kurds insist they are unwilling to give up many of the rights they enjoyed during 12 years of virtual independence that began after the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

"Our side is seeking a voluntary union with Iraq, but this voluntary union comes with the precondition that the system of government in Iraq is both federal and democratic, allowing us to maintain the local control we have had for more than a decade," said Qabad Talabani, the son of Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani.

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Kurds Reject Key Parts of Proposed Iraq Constitution