Iraqi groups move toward constitution

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Factional leaders moved closer to the deadline for completing Iraq’s new constitution Saturday without resolving their toughest dispute, and bombings across the country killed at least seven people, including two British consulate guards in southern Iraq.

A Sunni delegate to the constitutional committee urged members to delay making a decision on the contentious issue of whether Iraq should adopt a federal system until after parliamentary elections in December, while urging them to meet the Aug. 15 deadline for approving the rest of the document.

Kurds and some Shiite Arabs are calling for a federal system that would formally create separate regions in the predominantly Kurdish north and possibly in the Shiite south. The minority Sunnis, who ruled Iraq for more than eight decades until president Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003, say such a move would mean the breakup of the country.

Sunnis boycotted voting in January that seated the first elected post-Saddam government. But they are expected to take part in National Assembly elections in December and regain some of their political clout.

The Sunni delegate, Saleh Mutlak, said, “The next assembly will be in a better position” after the December vote to make a decision on an issue as important as federalism.

The two security contractors were killed when a bomb exploded next to a British consulate convoy in the southern city of Basra.

In Baghdad, a car bomb exploded near the National Theater, killing seven people, including three policemen, police and witnesses told news agencies.