Iraqi Assembly Adopts Changes to Draft Constitution

"I cannot say all agreed," Talabani said. "But there is no excuse or justification for the Sunni brothers to boycott after we accepted all their demands and suggestions without changing a letter in them. Their task now is to participate with us and vote 'yes' for the constitution and cooperate with us to fight terrorism and the people who want to destroy the country."

Earlier Wednesday, Iraqis were presented with the unlikely picture of the country's top Shiite political leader, the normally dour Abdul Aziz Hakim, beaming under his black turban as he announced the deal with Kurdish and Sunni faction leaders.

"This constitution has thoughts and ideas that we started to work on since we were in the Iraqi opposition,'' Hakim told reporters at a news conference. "Today was a symbol of the consensus among the factions of the Iraqi people who gave birth to this constitutional draft."

The National Assembly, a transitional body elected in January with a primary mandate of drafting a constitution, was given a verbal rundown of the changes late Wednesday. No vote was taken before political chiefs declared the draft official.

The chief compromise in the deal creates a new committee that would look at amending disputed provisions of the constitution after a new National Assembly is elected Dec. 15. Amending the constitution then would take a two-thirds vote in the assembly and another national referendum.

Sunni leaders, whose constituency largely stayed out of the January elections, say they expect a heavy Sunni turnout in December and a resulting increase in representation in the next assembly.

There appears to be no guarantee that federalism, the provision most disliked by Sunnis, would be put up for renegotiation, however. Shiites and Kurds envision Iraq as a loose federation -- comprising a separate Kurdish region in the north and possibly a Shiite region in the oil-rich south -- with a weak central government. Sunnis say that would break up Iraq and rob them of power and national resources.

Other changes include strengthening the constitution's characterization of Iraq as a partly Arab nation and a unified country -- both demands made by Sunni Arabs.

The changes mean Iraqis will vote Saturday on what is essentially a promise to write key parts of the constitution later. The alternative, scrapping the current draft, would mean starting over: A new parliament would have to be elected to write another draft constitution.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, identified by many as the single greatest influence on behalf of Sunni inclusion in the constitution-making process, encouraged Iraqis to disregard misleading accounts of the draft charter.

"I urge everyone in Iraq not to listen to the interpretations, to read it for themselves and to think about the future of Iraq," Khalilzad said after the National Assembly session.

Asked how Iraqis were supposed to find out about the changes, with the vote two days away and printing and distribution of revised copies impossible, Khalilzad told reporters there was "ample opportunity."

"I understand Iraqis watch a lot of TV," he said.

Special correspondents Bassam Sebti in Baghdad and Naseer Nouri and Saad Sarhan in Najaf, and correspondent Jonathan Finer in Najaf contributed to this report.