ANKARA - There were some deficiencies in interim constitution which was accepted in Iraq and they had some concerns, Turkey's Special Representative for Iraq Osman Koruturk said on Tuesday.
Koruturk told A.A that they hoped those deficiencies would be eliminated during preparation process of permanent constitution. Koruturk said that they have always expressed those concerns on official level.
Koruturk said that one of the most important deficiencies was that some articles in the interim constitution already seemed to limit the preparation style of permanent constitution.
Koruturk said that interim constitution basically set off and was formed around a status quo which had been continuing in Iraq since 70s, but it should not limit the future constitution.
Noting that the future constitution should be prepared by a chosen delegation and again a chosen delegation should accept it, Koruturk said that preparing the interim constitution not transparently was another deficiency.
Koruturk said that how much Iraqi Governing Council was representing the whole of Iraq and how much members of council participated in the preparation of interim constitution were uncertain. He added that it was clear that all groups were not represented justly in interim constitution.
Stressing that when the formation of Iraq in 1930s was considered, there were Arabs, Turkmens, Kurds and some other groups in Iraq, Koruturk said that Turkmens had more than ten percent population in the whole of Iraq thus, they should be represented more clearly and should take the place they deserved.
Noting that they hoped that all those difficulties would be eliminated in the preparation process of permanent constitution and corrected by the people who prepared the constitution, Koruturk said that ''Iraq on the Way to its New Constitution'' symposium was very beneficial because those issues were discussed more comprehensively with the participation of academicians.
Koruturk said that Turkey had contributions to Iraq in materialistic, scientific, political and various fields and added that this symposium had a serious scientific contribution.
Noting that Iraq should take example from Turkey's democracy experience, Koruturk said regarding Turkey's contributions to Iraq that Ankara made commitment worth of 50 million dollars of donation to Iraq for four years and sent trainers to the school in Jordan within the scope of police training project and built hospitals in some provinces, assisted infrastructure projects such as water and sewer systems and a new project would start on training of Iraqi diplomats in the next month.
(GC-AÖ) 23.03.2004