Report: Iraq misses deadline for census of voters eligible for Kirkuk referendum

U.S. Army troops with 25th Infantry Division and a Kurdish Iraqi policeman question local Arab construction workers in Kirkuk in May with the help of a translator needed by all 3.

Iraq's government has missed its deadline to compile a list of people eligible to vote in a December referendum that will determine the fate of a large, oil-rich and bitterly disputed swathe of the country, officials of northern Iraq's Kurdistan autonomous region saidyesterday.

Politicians from the Shia-led bloc that dominates the government and the Kurdish parties that are its main allies had agreed before the formation of the national unity government in June 2006 that today would be the deadline for a "census" of the inhabitants of Kirkuk and other "disputed territories" of northern Iraq.

However, the deadline appears to have passed without a census being completed, raising doubts as to whether the government is willing to follow through on its commitments.

Read the rest at the Financial Times

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