Iraq's parliament has reached a preliminary agreement on legislation to guarantee religious and ethnic minorities seats on provincial councils to be selected in elections expected soon, lawmakers said today.
"We have an initial agreement on the motion. Nevertheless we also have some reservations. Tomorrow we will have a second reading," said Hashim al-Ta'ie, a Sunni Arab politician who heads a committee on regional affairs.
"Parliament is expected to put it to a vote either Sunday or Monday."
Ta'ie said disagreement over the motion, based on a United Nations plan for minority representation, centred on whether the Shabak people, who live mostly in northern Iraq, were Kurds or a separate ethnic group.
Said Arikat, a UN spokesman in Baghdad, said on Tuesday UN officials had submitted a minorities plan to parliament, but declined to give details.
The government of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki has pressed lawmakers to adopt quotas for minorities before the provincial elections, expected by late January.
When parliament passed a law in September on the elections, it dropped a minority quota clause known as Article 50 from the draft at the last minute. Christians and other minorities protested at the decision.
Across Iraq, there will be about 440 provincial council seats up for vote. The number to be reserved for minorities is still under discussion. Saleem al-Jubouri, spokesman for the country's largest Sunni Arab political bloc, said parliament's legal committee was meeting a representative from the United Nations mission in Iraq to prepare for a vote on Monday.
Iraq's first election since 2005 could redraw the country's political map and give a greater political voice to Sunni Arabs who boycotted the vote last time.
The plight of Iraq's Christians, who number in the hundreds of thousands, came to the fore this month when at least 1,500 Christian families fled the northern city of Mosul after a dozen Christians were killed and others were threatened.
According to an official in Mosul, at least 80 families have returned.
Reuters