Iraqis Irate Over Senate Partition Vote

Resolution pushing autonomous regions prompts backlash
By Peter Fearon,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 1, 2007 10:10 AM CDT
Iraqis Irate Over Senate Partition Vote
Representatives of Iraq's major political parties address a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, Sept. 30, 2007. The representatives strongly denounced a U.S. Senate proposal calling for a limited centralized government with the bulk of the power given to the country's ethnically divided regions,...   (Associated Press)

The Iraqi government is reacting angrily to a Senate resolution passed Thursday that the US push to divide the country into three autonomous regions—Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish—to reduce ethnic bloodshed. "No Iraqi is for dividing their country or for splitting it into three weak states, unable to survive," Iraqi's foreign minister declared to CNN.

The largest Shiite and Sunni blocks in parliament joined to convey their outrage: "We call the Arab League to condemn the resolution, and we call all Iraqis to demonstrate against the resolution." The foreign minister noted that backlash against the measure, sponsored by Sen. Joe Biden, comes despite the fact that it is "in line with what the constitution—the Iraqi Constitution—has called for to establish a federal democratic Iraq in the future." (More Iraq stories.)

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