BAGHDAD, July 23 Two Iraqi parliamentarians say the controversial law governing Iraq's oil won't be voted on until at least after a planned August recess.
Meanwhile, the prime minister is urging legislators to scale back or cancel the break in order to move forward legislation his government calls key.
Iraq's Parliament has been unable to meet quorum regularly as frustrated parties boycott sessions or members escaping the violence leave the country. This has been a monkey wrench for both premier Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration, which has urged the government to approve the oil law, among other action.
The law would decide how the third-largest oil reserves in the world are governed. It is stuck in negotiations over the extent of federal vs. regional/local control over certain oil fields as well as the accepted amount of foreign investment in the nationalized sector.
"The oil and gas law was drafted to serve Iraq and its people but the political disputes turned the proposed law into a political pressure card," parliamentarian Abbas al-Bayyati, an independent member of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, told the Voices of Iraq news agency.
"The Parliament needs, at least, for a week to pass the bill into law and the remaining period is not enough to set it to debate and thus the discussion of the draft was postponed until the House is back from the summer recess," he said. Parliament is to take all of August off.
Jaber Khalifa of the Fadhila Party told Deutsche Press-Agentur the parliamentary Energy Committee was given two different versions of the draft law. He also said it will likely be stuck there until after the break.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
