AUGUST 18 LATE NIGHT UPDATE ON CONSTITUTIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 003415

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/18/2025
TAGS: IZ PGOV PHUM
SUBJECT: AUGUST 18 LATE NIGHT UPDATE ON CONSTITUTIONAL
PROCESS

REF: A) BAGHDAD 3410 B) BAGHDAD 3414

Classified By: Pol Couns Robert Ford, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) At around 23:00 August 18, following a full day of
meetings with key Iraqi constituencies, the Ambassador
concluded his evening meeting with Kurdish and Sunni leaders.
After receiving the Shi,a counterproposal noted in ref B
and discussing it with this group, final compromise appears
near on the issues of federal/regional authorities, Kirkuk,
the Constitutional Court, and the removal of a reference to
Iraq as a &single unit.8 Kurdish members of this group,
however ) most notably Masud Barzani ) reacted very
negatively to a late-arriving Shi,a counterproposal on
natural resources, which appears to differ only very little
from their original proposal of national ownership and
control over revenues.


2. (C) August 19 at 10:00, the Ambassador will convene a
meeting of the senior Iraqi leadership to march through the
text and attempt to settle the remaining issues. The major
outstanding issue between Kurds and Arabs is the treatment of
Iraq,s natural resources. Sunni members of the Constitution
Committee have not yet reached an agreement with the Shi,a
on how to approach the creation of new federal regions; this
will also be another major issue at dispute. Our goal will
be to hammer out a final deal on the text by the end of
August 19.
Khalilzad