Iraq's biggest Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, Tuesday condemned a draft constitution that was presented to the Iraqi National Assembly a day earlier.

"The Iraqi Islamic Party considers it a strong violation of the principle of consensus according to which the Islamic Party agreed to participate in discussing the draft constitution," the party said in a statement.

The points that are not solved concern the identity of Iraq, the issue of federal system, the distribution of authorities, and the cleaning of the constitution of any pointing out or indication to sectarianism and extremism against others," said the statement.

"If the current form of the draft constitution is not revised in a way that would serve national interests and guarantee the unity of Iraqis...then the draft constitution will be rejected," it warned.

Iraq's parliament received the draft constitution on Monday, minutes before a midnight deadline, but there was no vote and the parliamentary speaker said they would work for three days to resolve some outstanding issues.

The party's statement described the negotiations with the representatives from the National Assembly as hard and difficult.

"It is still too early...to put a final assessment of the draft, especially that some of the points would be discussed again in the coming few days, and then the party would have explicit stand," it added.

Tariq Al Hashimy, the general secretary of the party, also said it is still early to determine the stand of the Iraqi Islamic Party and they will wait until they receive the final copy.

Answering a question whether the three day period is enough to overcome the remaining points, Al Hashimy said, "If the discussions and meetings were managed in the same way, I personally doubt that there would be an agreement about the draft constitution."

The draft constitution is considered a key step in Iraq's political process.

If the charter is approved by parliament in the coming days, it will be put to a referendum in mid October. If approved by the referendum, new elections will be held by the end of the year to form a new parliament.

However, if two thirds of voters in any three Iraqi provinces say no to the referendum, the constitution will be vetoed, then the parliament will be dissolved, which could be a political disaster for the war-torn country.

(Xinhua News Agency August 24, 2005)