Iraqi parliament to meet on referendum rules; Hosni deplores US military operations in west Iraq

The speaker of the Iraqi parliament Hajem al-Hosni deplored the large- scale operations carried out by the American forces in al-Anbar governorate, west of Iraq.

In an interview with al-Jazeera satelite TV, he said that these operations obstruct the participation of the people of that area in the referendum on the new Iraqi constitution due in mid October.

Hosni stressed the need of halting these operations "in order not to say that they are carried out to prevent these areas from taking part in the referendum." He also underlined the importance of the Iraqi national reconciliation, and expressed his support for the Saudi initiative to this effect.

Meantime, the UN criticized the rules laid by the parliament on how votes are counted in the Iraqi constitution referendum, and described these rules as not comlying with international standards. The advisor for the UN election committee advisor in Iraq, Jose Aranaz, expressed the concern of the UN towards these rules which aim to make opposition to the constitution very difficult, compared to approving it.

Recently the Iraqi parliament decided that approving the constitution needs the consent of only half of the voters while defeating it needs the rejection of two thirds of "registered persons", instead of "voters", in three governorates.

He indicated he expects the Iraqi parliament to meet on Wednesday in order to cancel this decision which provoked the possibility of the Sunni boycott of the referendum after they had boycotted the last legislative elections.