WASHINGTON (AFP) — The White House on Thursday shrugged off US Senate approval of a Bosnia-style plan to divide Iraq on ethnic and religious lines, saying the non-binding measure would not change US policy.
"It's not something that shifts policy in Iraq," spokesman Tony Fratto said one day after the lawmakers backed what backers touted as the sole hope of forging a stable federal state out of deadly sectarian strife.
"I actually don't think it's as significant a vote as some have made it out to be," said Fratto, who noted that the amendment was a symbolic "sense of the Senate" measure with "nothing binding about it."
The measure, which passed 75-23, provided a key test of an idea drawing rising interest in Washington despite opposition from the Bush administration.
The plan, offered as an amendment to a defense policy bill, would provide for decentralizing Iraq in a federal system as permitted by Iraq's constitution to stop the country from becoming a failed state.
"The concept of federalism has always been part of the construct in Iraq. It's part of their constitution. The UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq talk about a federal, democratic Iraq," said Fratto.
The measure proposes to separate Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni entities, with a federal government in Baghdad in charge of border security and oil revenues.
It also aims to defuse sectarian violence by offering Sunnis a share of oil revenues, boosting reconstruction aid and debt relief and launching an international diplomatic effort to rally the world's great powers and Iraq's neighbors to the new federation's cause.
"Everyone has views of what might be the best way to proceed in Iraq. But clearly those decisions have to be made by the people of Iraq and they cannot be imposed by foreign countries, and certainly not us," said Fratto.
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