Baghdad
The top Shiite leader in Iraq said this week that Sunnis will not be allowed to try to amend the constitution, as they had been promised. The Sunnis last year threatened to boycott the referendum on the constitution, which gives Shiites and Kurds control over most of Iraq’s oil. To mollify the Sunnis, top Shiites agreed that the new parliament, which was elected in December with Sunni support, would have the right to change the document. But now the Shiites have backpedaled. “We will stop anyone who tries to change the constitution,” said Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Some analysts said that if al-Hakim sticks to that position, Sunnis might abandon the political process altogether and opt for civil war.
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