IRAQ: Two bomb attacks killed nearly 30 Iraqis in the northern town of Tal Afar and in Baghdad yesterday, four days before a referendum on a draft constitution that has divided Iraq's main communities.
A car bomb blew up in a market in Tal Afar, killing at least 24 people and wounding 36, according to Saleh Kadoo, head doctor at the hospital in the town near the Syrian border where Iraqi and US troops launched an offensive on insurgents last month.
A suicide car bomber attacked an Iraqi army convoy in a part of western Baghdad where insurgents are strong, killing five people and wounding 12, an interior ministry official said.
In Baghdad, Iraqi government negotiators agreed to a key demand from minority Sunnis that parliament should review possible amendments to the constitution four months after December's election.
A spokesman for President Jalal Talabani said talks were continuing to define which articles of the constitution, set to be voted on in a referendum on Saturday, would be reviewed, and a formal announcement was expected today.
"There's a basic agreement to amend the constitution," he said. "They are now looking at what points to review." Details could be announced in parliament, he said.
A senior official in the Shia- and Kurdish-led government described the move, which came in talks that involved the US ambassador, as a major development aimed at assuaging Sunni anger over the constitution.
"It's a breakthrough to win Sunni endorsement for the constitution," the official said.
There was no agreement, however, about precisely how the constitution might be amended, leaving the Sunni minority still at risk of being disappointed in next year's negotiations.
One secular Sunni leader, who was not at the talks, said such an agreement would not change his attitude towards the referendum. Sunni politicians have mostly called on people to vote No to a charter they say could break the country up into warring sectarian and ethnic regions or to boycott the polls.
The Shia deputy speaker of parliament, Hussain Shahristani, said he expected Sunnis, who mostly boycotted a January election that then sapped their power to influence negotiations on the constitution in parliament, to take part in large numbers in a general election expected on December 15th.
"These discussions are mainly useful so that . . . they can as of now study amendments and discuss them" for debate in the new National Assembly that will sit next year, he said.
While Sunnis are a majority in at least three provinces, they are not expected to be able to raise enough votes to defeat the charter.
If they fail to do so, that may end up fuelling the insurgency continuing across the country for more than two years.
Iraqi officials preparing for the vote announced that the first ballots would be cast tomorrow as early polling is permitted at hospitals and detention centres. - (Reuters)