140 article commission needs $500m to meet obligations – chairman

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The sums appropriated for the 140 article commission are insufficient, chairman Raed Fahmi Jahid said during a meeting held by the parliament’s financial committee on Saturday. “The parliament’s financial committee devoted Saturday’s meeting to debate the budget allocated for the 140 article commission,” Jahid, who doubles as minister of science & technology, told IraqiNews.com news agency. He added that the appropriations must be increased from $100 million to more than $500 million, noting he offered during his commission’s meeting with the parliament financial committee details about the work of his panel and its obligations of disbursing compensations for the deportees and incomers. The commission is concerned with enforcing the provisions of article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution pertaining to settlement of disputed areas. According to the article, the problem of disputed areas, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, has to be dealt with over three stages: normalization, census and referendum among the inhabitants, which should determine whether Kirkuk would remain as an Iraqi province or to be annexed to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region. AmR (P)/SR 1