Problems seen for Iraq budget despite compromise

By Wisam Mohammed and Ahmed Rasheed

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A compromise on the main sticking point holding up Iraq's 2008 budget appears possible but it and several other key reconciliation laws face potentially long delays, lawmakers and ministers said on Wednesday.

Iraqi lawmakers are set to vote on Thursday on the budget as well as laws governing the distribution of power between Baghdad and Iraq's 18 provinces and another that would free thousands of mainly Sunni Arab detainees from Iraqi jails.

Lawmakers have so far refused to ratify the $48 billion budget because of arguments over allocations between the provinces, particularly the largely autonomous northern region of Kurdistan.

The current draft of the law has allocated 17 percent of budget funds to Kurdistan, based on population estimates.

Shi'ite and Sunni Arab lawmakers say Kurdistan should receive about 13 percent because that is a more accurate reflection of the Kurdish population in the absence of any recent census.

Planning Minister Ali Baban, a Kurdish independent, said he would deliver on Thursday a report from his department with a compromise figure that showed Kurds made up about 14.5 percent of Iraq's estimated population of 27.5 million.

He said the figure was based on statistics available to his department, including the most recent national census in 1987.

Despite that estimate, Baban said he expected the budget to pass with an allocation for Kurdistan of 17 percent.