Wednesday, August 17 2005 12:10 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Iraqi politicians warned of political turmoil yesterday (Aug 16, 2005) after failing to meet a deadline on the country's new constitution, but Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and US officials sought to downplay the crisis.

With negotiations deadlocked, Jaafari's Government escaped dissolution by just a few minutes on Monday night as MPs voted through an eleventh-hour amendment to set a new deadline for the charter to go before parliament.

Politicians spoke of intractable differences between the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish representatives battling to hammer out an agreement by the new August 22 deadline.

But Jaafari described the delay after weeks of marathon talks as a 'very normal' measure.

"The demography of Iraq and its complicated political map" should be taken into consideration, Jaafari told reporters.

"The delay was for one week only and the pending points do not need a longer period."

The drafting of the post-Saddam constitution, due to be put to a referendum in October, is a key phase in Iraq's political transition which the United States and its allies hope could pave the way to a pullout of foreign troops.

But Iraqi politicians said sharp differences remained on key questions.

"There are serious differences on issues like the sharing of national (oil) wealth and the demand of self-determination from the Kurds," Munther al-Fadhal, a Kurdish-allied member of the constitution committee told sources.

"This is a one-time extension, if Iraq misses the next deadline, we have to dissolve the national assembly, the Government will collapse and fresh elections will have to be held."

US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said he was 'personally disappointed' there had been no agreement on time, but brushed aside the damaging scenario of negotiators missing the new deadline.

Khalilzad said it was a 'mistaken concept'

Khalilzad said it was a 'mistaken concept' for Iraqis to believe that fresh elections would solve remaining differences over the country's future.

"Rather than posturing for electoral advantage, it is important to focus on resolving remaining differences," he said.

According to Khalilzad, negotiators had reached broad agreement on issues including the role of Islam and federalism, but 'rather than saying it's finished and we'll fine-tune it later, they decided to go for a clean, legal option'.

US leaders hailed the faltering process as 'democracy at work'.

"I applaud the heroic efforts of Iraqi negotiators and appreciate their work to resolve remaining issues through continued negotiation and dialogue," President George W. Bush said.

"Their efforts are a tribute to democracy and an example that difficult problems can be solved peacefully through debate, negotiation and compromise."

Shiite panellist Jawad al-Maliki said he was optimistic an agreement would be reached, but indicated a draft might be presented without all parties on board.

"We are not seeking 100 percent consensus the most important thing is that the people of Iraq accept (the constitution) in a referendum," Maliki told sources.