IRAQ - July 30 - Iraqi Parliament Misses Key Deadline.

Iraq's government misses its deadline to compile a list of people eligible to vote in a December referendum that will determine the fate of a large, oil-rich and bitterly disputed swathe of the country. Politicians from the Shi'ite-led bloc that dominates the government and the Kurdish parties that are its main allies had agreed before the formation of the national unity government in June 2006 that would be the deadline for a "census" of the inhabitants of Kirkuk and other "disputed territories" of northern Iraq. Background About 8m Iraqis need immediate aid because of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, relief agencies said on July 30. A report by Oxfam and the NGO Co-ordination Committee network in Iraq said 15% of Iraqis could not regularly afford to eat; 70% were without adequate water supplies (up from 50% in 2003); and 28% of children were malnourished However, the deadline appears to have passed without a census being completed, raising doubts as to whether the government is willing to follow through on its commitments. The failure to meet the deadline "shows a lack of seriousness from all parties to implement...articles that were in the constitution that people had agreed and voted upon", said Falah Mustafa Bakir, head of the Kurdistan regional government's department of foreign relations. For many Kurds, the referendum is a chance to reclaim Kirkuk, which Jalal Talabani, Iraq's Kurdish president, has called the "Jerusalem of Kurdistan" - a historic capital purged of much of its non-Arab population by the regime of Saddam Hussein, the deposed leader. But although Iraq's constitution calls for the referendum - which would ask people whether they wished to be part of the Kurdistan autonomous region - to be held no later than December 31, many Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs strongly oppose Kirkuk ever becoming part of Kurdistan. The Article 140 process - designed to undo the "Arabisation" policies pursued by Saddam aimed at solidifying Arab control of northern oil fields - has also drawn criticism from others who fear it will feed instability. The former regime pushed Kurds and other non-Arabs out by denying them government jobs or in some cases confiscating properties. Arab settlers were brought in from other parts of the country, particularly the Shi'ite south. In addition, it shuffled the borders of the region's provinces, handing away slices of Kirkuk to its neighbours in what Kurdish officials claim was an attempt at gerrymandering, ensuring the north's main oilfields were in an Arab-majority province. To reverse this demographic engineering, Arab settlers are to be offered nearly $16,000 in compensation and land in their home provinces to leave. Some Arab politicians have accused the Kurdistan government of using harsher measures, driving the newcomers out by force. But while Kurdish officials admit that local commanders may have expelled settlers in the immediate aftermath of the 2003 "liberation" of the region, they deny any sustained campaign of ethnic cleansing. Kurdish officials claim 16,000 families have voluntarily signed up to receive the cash and land but that the money has yet to be disbursed. Iraq's presidency council - comprised of Talabani and a Sunni and Shi'ite vice-president - was supposed to have addressed the border issue by restoring the north's pre-Arabisation administrative boundaries. But that requires the approval of parliament and in Iraq's slow-moving legislature, any contentious issue is delayed and delayed again, suggesting that the border change might be still be some time away. The final and most contentious stage of the Article 140 process, the census and referendum, are equally elusive. The compilation of the voter rolls, while technically dubbed a "census", will mostly involve the cross-checking of documents. Only descendants of the region's pre-Arabisation inhabitants now living in the region are eligible to vote. Muhammad Ihsan, a Kurdish member of the Article 140 committee, says that the voter registration rolls will be run through a series of "filters" - censuses in 1 957 and 1971, government contract lists, food ration rolls, and others - to determine who is an original inhabitant of the region and who is a "settler". Given the depth of opposition to the process, some outsiders -- such as the Brussels-based ICG - have advocated the delay or even the cancellation of the referendum. But Kurdish officials are emphatic that a process outlined in the constitution should not be shelved in the name of political expediency. The Kurdistan government has probably calculated that this opportunity to regain Kirkuk, with a set timetable and a government in Baghdad that is at least nominally willing to implement it, may not come again. But if their allies in Baghdad do not take the administrative steps needed to organise the referendum, a delay might be difficult to avoid.