BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq?s parliament agreed to a seven-day extension for leaders to complete a draft constitution after politicians failed to reach a midnight Monday deadline to agree on the charter.

 

Parliament adjourned after voting to extend the deadline until Aug. 22, acting on a request from Kurdish leaders for more time.

 

Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish framers of the charter had reached a tentative deal late Monday, agreeing on issues ranging from oil revenues to the country?s name but putting off decision on the most contentious questions ? including women?s rights, the role of Islam and possible Kurdish autonomy.

 

Efforts to meet the Aug. 15 deadline showed how determined Iraqis are to maintain political momentum under intense U.S. pressure, but their failure to agree was a clear sign that their sharp political divisions are far from over.

 

Several members of the committee drafting Iraq's constitution had previously announced they had agreed to seek a 10-day extension to the Aug. 15 deadline. The members, from the Sunni and Shiite communities, said the proposal would be put to the Iraqi parliament, which was beginning the late-night meeting in Baghdad.

 

"We agreed to extend the deadline for 10 days," Salah al-Mutlaq, a senior Sunni negotiator, told Reuters.

 

A Kurdish minister on the committee drafting an Iraqi constitution made a similar statement on Al-Arabiyah TV.

 

Barhem Saleh, minister of planning and a former deputy prime minister, made the statement shortly before the Iraqi parliament convened to consider the draft.

 

?Regrettably we were not able to reach a draft we could all agree on,? Saleh said, adding, ?We agreed to extend the period to discuss the draft for a maximum of 10 days, maybe seven to 10 days.?

 

Saleh added: ?If we don?t reach an agreement, then the National Assembly will be dissolved, and we will call for general elections for a new National Assembly in a maximum period before Oct. 10.?

 

The Iraqis have been under strong pressure from the United States to complete the charter on time and keep on track a political process the Americans hope will lure Sunnis away from the insurgency so U.S. and other foreign troops can begin to go home next year.

 

Earlier, two Shiite officials said the committee had agreed on a draft constitution to be submitted by the deadline, but that the document would leave two issues for the legislative body to decide.

 

Nasar al-Rubaie, a member of the committee drafting the charter, said the document would be handed over to the 275-member National Assembly late Monday for a decision on the two unresolved issues, which he did not specify.

 

Jalaldin al-Saghir, a Shiite member of parliament, said the same thing but refused to identify the two remaining issues.

 

"An agreement has been reached on the constitution and it was signed and it will be handed to parliament," he said. "There are two points that the National Assembly will have to solve."

 

Earlier reports suggested that Sunni Arab objections to the creation of Shiite and Kurdish autonomous regions in the southern and northern parts of Iraq, proposals for a special status for the Shiite clerical leadership and a formula for distributing oil wealth and dual citizenship were the main issues threatening to force the negotiators to miss the deadline.

 

Meanwhile, the insurgency pressed ahead, with at least 13 people killed in scattered attacks, including a barber who police said was shot to death as he walked to his parlor in southwest Baghdad.

 

Barbers in the country have been targeted by fundamentalists who accuse them of violating a strict interpretation of Islamic teachings that say men should keep their beards long.

 

Two large explosions also were heard in Baghdad's "Green Zone" as the legislators were meeting to consider the draft constitution.

 

The meeting for parliament to vote on the draft constitution was delayed for several hours before the agreement was announced.

 

Tariq al-Hashimi, the general secretary of Iraq's biggest Sunni political group, the Iraqi Islamic party, told Al-Jazeera television that the minority's demands were not the only obstacles blocking progress.

 

Instead, he said Shiites and Kurds also had "points of disagreement" and it might be better to delay a decision. He didn't elaborate.

 

But a Kurdish member of the drafting committee, Munthir al-Fadl, said that a constitution that doesn't fulfill Kurdish demands of "self-determination" and the authority of provincial governors, "will not succeed and will not even reach the gates of the National Assembly."

 

Al-Hashimi said his party did not believe in the "sanctity" of the interim constitution which mandated Monday as the deadline for the constitution to be approved by parliament.

 

"It will be today. It will be a historic day in the history of Iraq," Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie told CNN just over an hour before the delay was announced.

 

Government spokesman Laith Kubba also said the document would be presented on time.

 

"Every group knows what they will lose if they don't reach an agreement," Kubba told state-run Iraqiya television.

 

Shiites and Kurds dominate the 275-member National Assembly ? as well as the constitutional committee ? and could ram through the charter over Sunni Arab objections. Other options include amending the interim constitution to extend the deadline or dissolving parliament.

 

Sunnis ? who boycotted the Jan. 30 vote for an interim parliament ? could defeat the constitution in the national referendum. If two-thirds of the voters in three provinces vote against the constitution, it would be defeated. Sunni Arabs form the majority in at least four provinces.

 

Sunni clerics have urged followers to vote against any constitution that could lead to the breakup of the country.

 

American officials applied pressure to resolve differences on that and other issues before Monday's deadline ? despite the risks of alienating the Sunnis.

 

"A lot of American blood and American treasure has been spent here," U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Sunday in a televised interview, adding he had made that point "abundantly clear" to the Iraqis.

 

 

We need to hope that they can get a Constitution finished soon, so that we can get closer to bringing our troops home.

It has taken us more thant 200+ years to really understand and put our own constitution to proper use, why must we put the Iraqis on OUR timetable and have them rush laying the foundation of thier democracy. A democracy stained with American and Iraqi blood no less.

It has taken us more thant 200+ years to really understand and put our own constitution to proper use, why must we put the Iraqis on OUR timetable and have them rush laying the foundation of thier democracy. A democracy stained with American and Iraqi blood no less.

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Well, we had the basic document back in 1791.