Sunday, August 28 2005 14:43 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Iraq's disenchanted Sunni Arabs sprung a surprise today by demanding a bigger role for Islam and rejecting Shiite autonomy as they submitted a new proposal on the draft constitution, a day before it comes to a parliamentary vote.

"We have presented a (new) proposal countering the Shiites' and Kurds' proposal... We reject the term 'autonomous regions' wherever it is mentioned," in the draft, Sunni negotiator Saleh al-Motlag told AFP, referring to federalism.

"Islam is the religion of the state and the main source of legislation," the new proposal stipulated, Motlag said. The current working draft says Islam is "a" main source. The written proposal, which was seen by AFP, demanded omission of any reference to autonomous regions in the constitution, except for the Kurdish north, much of which has enjoyed autonomous status since 1970.

"We want a capital (Baghdad) and one autonomous region only, in addition to governorates enjoying decentralized powers," the proposal said, accepting the de facto autonomous Kurdistan.

The proposal also demanded that the Kurdish language be given official status only in the Kurdish region and that the whole of Iraq be referred to as part of the Arab world. In deference to Kurdish sensitivities, the current working text says that Iraq is part of the Islamic world but that only its Arab people are part of the Arab nation.

Iraq's draft constitution, seen as key to political transition and paving the way for an eventual withdrawal of foreign troops, has been dogged by disputes over federalism, the role of Islam and sharing of oil revenues.