REUTERS REPORTS: KURDS WALKOUT OF IRAQI PARLIAMENT

BAGHDAD, July 22 (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament passed a provincial elections bill on Tuesday, but a walkout by Kurdish lawmakers over the disputed oil city of Kirkuk could mean the law may not ratified by the presidency.

Kurds make up one of the three main groups in parliament, and their boycott of the vote over a dispute on how the elections law would deal with Kirkuk means the bill could be sent back to parliament.The law is meant to pave the way for polls seen as vital to reconciling Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the last provincial elections in 2005, with its other communities."Today parliament passed the provincial elections law, in the absence of the Kurdish alliance, which walked out," Hanin Qado, a lawmaker from the ruling Shi'ite alliance, told Reuters.Read more: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L22936003.htm