Impasse on Iraq charter as new deadline looms
Sun Aug 21, 2005 1:59 PM ET

By Mussab Al-Khairalla and Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Barely 24 hours before Monday's midnight deadline, Iraq's sectarian and ethnic groups remained seriously at odds over a draft constitution, despite urgent efforts by U.S. diplomats to broker a deal.

The government conceded new elections might be a way forward -- that, or put the 2000 GMT deadline back for the second time in a week, at the risk of trying the patience of Washington.

Leaders of the Sunni Arab minority, who long dominated Iraq, dug in their heels against Kurdish and majority Shi'ite demands for broad federal autonomy in the oil-rich north and south and urged their community to register to vote in a show of strength.

In the battle-scarred former Sunni rebel bastion of Falluja, thousands turned out in a movement that has implications for the armed uprising and for a planned referendum on the constitution.

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