Iraq's acting speaker urges end to party boycotts

BAGHDAD, July 5 (Reuters) Iraq's acting parliamentary speaker urged political blocs today to end their boycott of the legislature to help push through vital laws designed to ease sectarian tension between Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs.

''They should end their pointless boycott and voice their opinion here loudly to relay us the voice of their constituents,'' Khaled al-Attiya told lawmakers in an appeal to the main Sunni Arab bloc and a Shi'ite political party.

Washington, facing domestic unease over the war in Iraq, is pressing Iraqi leaders to pass a key oil law and other political benchmarks that it hopes will help reconcile majority Shi'ite and minority Sunni Arabs and Kurds.

Iraq's oil lies mainly in the Kurdish north and Shi'ite south.

Sunnis, who live mainly in the centre the country around Baghdad, fear missing out on any windfalls.

A draft oil law was approved on Tuesday by the cabinet of Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and now must be debated in parliament.

But a number of legislators from both sides of the Arab sectarian divide have halted their attendance.

The Sunni Accordance Front, with 44 seats in the 275-seat chamber, suspended its participation after their speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, was ousted last month.

It said in a statement later today that it would return to parliament only if Mashhadani got his old job back.

But it also announced the bloc had a new leader, naming moderate Ayad al-Samarrae in place of hardliner Adnan al-Duleimi, in a sign that it might be prepared to take a less combative stance in the negotiations that lie ahead.

Politicians loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, representing a bloc of 30 seats, pulled out in protest against the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine's minarets in the Sunni city of Samarra on June 13.

Attiya urged lawmakers to attend in sufficient numbers to achieve a quorum and suggested running six sessions every week instead of the current three.

Parliament has already cut its two-month summer break and will sit until the end of July to tackle urgent business.

Besides the oil law, Washington wants Iraqi politicians to agree to fresh provincial elections this year, as well as new rules allowing some members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to join the military or the government.

Reuters AGL DB2041