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Top officials from Baghdad and Washington should be relaxed Monday as the Iraqi parliament speaker announced no need to extend the time to draft the country's permanent constitution, a move that gives fresh impetus to the race to have the document ready by Aug. 15.
"There is no need to ask for extension for the draft," Hachim al-Hassani, the parliament speaker, told a news conference in Baghdad's Conventions Center following an 11-hour negotiation in the parliament session.
"After deliberations with all the parliament parties, the National Assembly (parliament) will not ask for extension and the draft will be submitted to the parliament no later than Aug. 15," he said.
Hassani's optimism was echoed by Humam Hammoudi, chairman of the 71-member Constitution Committee, who pledged that all of Iraq's constitutional founding fathers would do their utmost to meet the deadline.
"All our brothers in the committee insisted on working day and night to finalize the constitution on Aug. 15, to submit it to the National Assembly and the people for discussion and then probably to make some amendments to the text," Hammoudi said in the press conference, flanked by Hassani.
Hammoudi revealed that there would be a meeting for the parliament bloc leaders on Aug. 5 to solve the troublesome issues, adding "if the bloc leaders could not solve such issues, they will be brought forward to the National Assembly in order for them to be solved."
Earlier, Hammoudi told the parliament that the draft of the country's permanent charter would be ready by Aug. 15.
"I can say that on Aug. 15 we can be able to finish the constitution and hand it over to the parliament for discussion," said Hammoudi.
According to the timetable for Iraq's political process, the constitution should be written by Aug. 15 and put to referendum by Oct. 15, which would be followed by elections to choose a new government by Dec. 15.
The Iraqi officials' pledge to bring the constitution on time came under constant pressure from the United States, which asks them not to leave a window of opportunity to insurgents bent on derailing the reconstruction process in the war-scarred country.
John Sattler, Lt. Gen. of the US Marines, said recently that Iraq's constitution would be "one more nail" on the coffin of the insurgency, noting progress on the document would frustrate insurgents and former Baath Party members with blood on their hands.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld stepped up pressure on the document by asking the Iraqi people to "get on with it" during his surprise visit to Baghdad last week.
His unannounced visit to Baghdad came when constitution writers were torn apart by fundamental issues to decide whether or not to seek a delay in presenting the premature document.
US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad also gave a push to the committee by saying fundamental divides can be bridged "if good-faith efforts are made, with a spirit of realism, flexibility and compromise."
Iraq's President Jalal Talabani met with Khalilzad on Sunday before he issued a statement underscoring "the necessity to finish the writing of the constitution at the scheduled time."
Talabani demanded that "maximum efforts be made" to reach agreement on the draft as scheduled, while Iraqi officials revealed that intensive consultations were under way Sunday night to find a way out of the impasse.
Iraq already has a interim constitution and the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), which will serve as a basis for the upcoming permanent charter, but profoundly divisive issues such as women's rights, powers and identity of the Iraqi state are yet to be solved.
Both the Iraqi and US governments are expecting that a widely accepted constitution will erode support for the insurgency, bridle violence, allow a phased withdrawal of foreign troops, and make the reconstruction less bloody.
Iraqi National Security Adviser Muwaffaq Al Rubaie told CNN on Sunday, "We believe that any delaying of the political process is going to play into the hands of the terrorists and of those who are adopting violence."
"They will claim victory that they have succeeded in delaying the political process," said Rubaie.
He believed that everybody in the political process regardless of their religion and ethnics, are determined and the government is "so determined to meet all the deadlines and not to get any postponement of this political process."
As one more step toward the Oct. 15 referendum on the constitution, Adel Al-lami, head of Iraq's electoral commission announced on Sunday that registration of voters to participate in the poll would begin on Wednesday.
(Xinhua News Agency August 2, 2005)
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