Iraq's president and two vice presidents approved a bill on Saturday that guarantees local council seats for Christians and other minorities, though minority groups complained it gave them too few seats. The bill gives the minorities a quota of six out of a total of 440 provincial council seats to be elected by January 31.
The decision to approve the bill was made despite strong opposition from Christians and other minority groups, who visited Iraqi officials in recent days to push for more seats. The United Nations had suggested they should get 12. "We completely reject this approval. This appeases the ethnic and religious ignorance of the parliament," Yunadim Kanna, one of the few Christian members of parliament, told Reuters.
"It is a disappointment and depressing to Christians in Iraq. It is deeply regrettable." But the Presidency Council, which includes President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and his two vice presidents, a Sunni Arab and a Shia, said the main issue was that minorities get a quota, rather than its size.
"The most important thing that has been achieved in all these talks is the right of minorities through fixed seats," it said in a statement. Kanna and other Iraqi Christian leaders estimate their number at 750,000 out of Iraq's 28 million people.
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