| |
| |
 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
WASHINGTON: The United States is "deeply involved" in efforts to help Iraqi rivals adopt an electoral law, but elections may be delayed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.
"We support the Iraqi government's efforts to pass an election law so that they can proceed with planned elections," Clinton told reporters.
"We will continue working with all of the parties. Our ambassador Chris Hill on the ground has been deeply involved in doing so already," the chief US diplomat said.
"There are a number of ideas that we will be presenting," she added without elaborating.
"We have every reason to believe that elections will be held which will be another milestone on the journey that Iraqis are taking toward full and comprehensive democracy," Clinton said.
The election, the second national ballot since the US-led invasion of 2003 which ousted Saddam Hussein, is scheduled for mid-January but cannot proceed until the electoral law receives presidential assent.
In Baghdad, Baha al-Araji, the head of parliament's legal committee, said the election will be delayed, because an amended electoral law agreed on Monday is likely to be vetoed for a second time by the country's Sunni vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi.
The deal increases the number of parliamentary seats in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region compared with an earlier version of the bill, which al-Hashemi vetoed, but reduces the figure for Sunni areas.
- AFP/sc
|
