"If the text is not handed to the national assembly (parliament) by the deadline... one choice is to ask for another one-week extension," Kubba told reporters.

BAGHDAD, August 21, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – With several sticking points still blocking the new constitution, Baghdad said Sunday, August 21, it may seek another extension to Monday's deadline to bridge the gabs.

"If the text is not handed to the national assembly (parliament) by the deadline... one choice is to ask for another one-week extension or the other is to dissolve the parliament," Leith Kubba, spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, told reporters, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

After missing the original August 15 deadline to submit the first post-Saddam charter to parliament, Iraq's leaders secured a one-week extension after amending an article in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL).

The TAL, an interim constitution drawn up under US occupation last year, called for the interim legislature to be dissolved and elections by December for a new constitution-drafting body if no draft permanent constitution was ready by August 15.

Sharp differences remained Sunday on issues including a federal structure for Iraq, the role of Islam and the sharing of national oil wealth, raising the prospect of another parliamentary vote to extend the deadline.

Negotiators said US officials were pressuring Kurds to give up their ambitions of self-determination and water down demands on oil ownership in a bid to reach a deal with the Shiites.

"The US is pressuring the Kurds to give up these two demands," said one source.

Others said US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad had personally persuaded Kurdish groups to soften their stance.

Washington sees the charter as key to keeping Iraq's political transition on track in the face of a deadly "insurgency".

Kurdish leaders on Saturday, August 20, offered a compromise on self-determination, a demand which would effectively give their de facto autonomous northern region the chance to secede from Iraq at a later date.

But Kurdish ambitions to have the oil center of Kirkuk included within their territory and to seek a degree of control over the region's oil reserves could be more difficult to assuage.

Installing Islam as the country's main source of legislation and allowing scholars a political role, as demanded by the Shiites, are also stumbling blocks.

The United States on Saturday dropped its opposition to enshrining Islam as "the" main source of legislation and not just "a" main source in an effort to please the Shiites.

But the secular Kurds strongly oppose the move, arguing that it contravenes women's rights and the country's secularist traditions.

"We will oppose this as much as we can," Kurdish negotiator Mahmud Otham said.

Iraq's Sunnis, who reject any notion of federalism, have threatened to block the would-be draft in the scheduled mid-October referendum.

Under Iraq's interim law, the charter will fail if two-thirds of voters in any three provinces reject it.

Sunni Arabs form a majority in at least three provinces: Al-Anbar, Ninevah and Salaheddin.