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Iraqi Sunnis, Kurds withhold agreement on draft Iraq oil bill

Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians and a powerful Shiite party said yesterday that they had not agreed to a draft bill to regulate Iraq's oil industry, raising the possibility of new delays in a major piece of benchmark legislation sought for months by the US.

It appeared unlikely that parliament would begin debate on the measure yesterday as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had previously announced.

A day earlier, al-Maliki said his Cabinet had approved the draft bill and was sending it to the legislature.

US officials are hoping that passage of the oil bill and companion legislation to distribute oil revenues will help to rally Sunni support for the government and reduce popular backing for the insurgents.

But deep differences between Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in al-Maliki's coalition have frustrated efforts to get a draft to parliament.

Only 24 of the Cabinet's 37 members were present for the vote because of boycotts by ministers from the Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front and the Shiite bloc loyal to anti-US cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Both groups have political disputes with al-Maliki.

An Accordance Front leader warned yesterday that no draft should be considered until the Sunnis sign on.

"Any draft law that isapproved in the absence of the Iraqi Accordance Front only represents the groups that approved it," Khalaf al-Ilyan told al-Sharqiya television. "If there are some who want to cancel the voices of half of the Iraqi people, then they take the responsibility."

The head of the Sadrist bloc in parliament, Nassar al-Rubaie, said: "We reject this copy of the oil and gas draft law because it left nothing of Iraq's unity."

The Kurds said that they had neither seen nor approved the final text and would oppose it if it made "material and substantative changes" to an outline agreed upon during negotiations.

Meanwhile, a suicide car bomber killed seven people in Baiji, 180km north of Baghdad, police said.

The attacker drove the car into a police patrol that had pulled up at a restaurant for lunch.

Three policemen were killed and at least 18 people wounded in the blast, including several other officers, police said.
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