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Iraqi Parliament approves law to form federal regions
The Iraqi Parliament on Wednesday approved a law that sets out the mechanics of forming federal regions, an issue the Sunni minority and some Shiites leaders and fear might tear the country apart in sectarian civil war. On the ground, militiamen firing mortars overnight detonated a US ammunition dump in Baghdad, sparking a barrage of explosions that continued to shake the capital on Wednesday morning.

The largest Sunni coalition in Parliament and two Shiite parties tried to prevent a vote on a bill by boycotting Wednesday's session to prevent the 275-seat body from reaching the necessary 50 percent quorum. But the quorum was reached with 140 lawmakers, who voted on each of the bill's some 200 articles individually, passing them all unanimously. The law includes a provision that regions cannot be formed for another 18 months, a concession to Sunni concerns.

“Sunnis fear a federal Iraq would hand northern and southern oilfields to ethnic Kurds and Shiites respectively, and would leave them trapped in a poor, desert rump state in central and western Iraq.”
The federalism law sets up a system for allowing provinces to join together into autonomous regions that would hold considerable self-rule powers, a right given to them under the Constitution adopted last year in a national referendum. Sunnis fear a federal Iraq would hand northern and southern oilfields to ethnic Kurds and Shiites respectively, and would leave them trapped in a poor, desert rump state in central and western Iraq.

Legislators loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and the smaller Shiite Fadhila Party stayed away from Wednesday's vote, showing Shiite support for federalism is not unanimous. "This is the beginning of the plan to divide Iraq," said Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the Sunni National Accordance Front, which boycotted the vote.
Posted by: Fred & Seafarious 2006-10-12
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=168383