US conceding to Iraqi Islamists

If agreed by Monday's parliamentary deadline, it would appear to be a major concession to Islamist leaders from the Shia Muslim majority and sit uneasily with US insistence on the primacy of democracy and human rights in the new Iraq.

US diplomats, who have been shepherding the process closely, declined immediate comment and at least one secular Kurdish politician said Kurds would try to block such a deal.

But an official from one of the main Shia Islamist parties and a leading Sunni Arab negotiator said agreement had been reached, reversing an understanding reached earlier in the recent talks that Islam would simply be "a main source" of law.

Parliament would not be able to pass legislation that contradicted the principles of Islam, several negotiators told Reuters. One Shia official said that a constitutional court would decide whether laws conformed to Islamic faith.

But Sunni negotiator Saleh al-Mutlak said that, at the insistence of US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the constitution would also contain language stating that the "principles of democracy" would be respected.

Khalilzad, who said this month there would be "no compromise" on equal rights for women and minorities, helped draft a constitution in his native Afghanistan which declared it an "Islamic Republic" in which no law could contradict Muslim principles.

It also, however, contained language establishing equal rights for women and protecting religious minorities.

Other Arab states, including secularly ruled Egypt, have similar phrasing in their constitutions, alloting a special role for Islam in the law.

Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush, besieged at his Texas ranch by relatives of US soldiers killed in Iraq, said yesterday that the best way to honour fallen troops was to win the war on terrorism.

"We must finish the task that our troops have given their lives for and honour their sacrifice by completing their mission," the president said in his weekly radio address from his Prairie Chapel property near this tiny town.

"They know that if we do not confront these evil men abroad, we will have to face them one day in our own cities and streets, and they know that the safety and security of every American is at stake in this war, and they know we will prevail," said Bush, who was here on a five-week vacation from Washington.