BAGHDAD, Sept. 25 (UPI) -- The controversial bill allowing the formation of autonomous provinces in Iraq has sparked a row in parliament and a boycott by Sunni and Kurdish lawmakers.
Members of the Kurdish Alliance bloc and the Sunni National Iraqi Dialogue Front walked out of a parliamentary session Monday to protest against the bill that would break Iraq into autonomous provinces on the model of the Kurdish enclave in the north of the country.
Lawmaker Osama Najafi, a member of the Shiite National Iraqi Coalition, caused anger among the Kurdish legislators by questioning the draft constitution of the Kurdish enclave, which provides for the annexing of certain cities in the provinces of Mosul and Diala.
Spokesman for the Kurdish bloc, Fouad Maasoum, said: "We have been taken by surprise today by what has been raised... Instead of talking about internal security, Osama Najafi indulged in a review of the history and geography of Mosul as if no Kurds lived there but only tribes and nomads.
"We were upset by the National Iraqi Coalition and walked out of parliament session to protest such attitudes," Maasoum said.
Members of the National Iraqi Dialogue Front, led by legislator Saleh Mutlaq, boycotted the session to protest the controversial autonomous regions bill, one of the most divisive issues in Iraq.
Mutlaq rejected outright the formation of autonomous entities, which he charged were a step towards partitioning Iraq along sectarian lines.
He also charged that the plan was incited by regional parties with the aim of controlling oil-rich southern Iraq, which has a majority Shiite population with strong links to Iran.
Iraqi political leaders agreed Sunday to postpone until at least 2008 any effort to divide the country into autonomous regions, mainly out of concern that Shiites would move quickly to secede oil-rich south Iraq.
