BAGHDAD, Iraq – Political groups representing Iraq’s minority Sunni Arabs called yesterday for new delays in approving a national constitution, complaining that they had been cut out of final-hour negotiations between Shiite Muslims and Kurds and appealing to American and U.N. officials to intervene.

The nation’s transitional National Assembly is scheduled to approve a final draft of Iraq’s first democratic constitution today after missing last Monday’s deadline, voting instead to give themselves one more week to seek compromises on key issues.

Shiites and Kurds, both long oppressed during Saddam Hussein’s regime by a strong central government dominated by Sunnis, have written a draft that creates a federal system allowing for greater regional autonomy. Sunnis have staunchly opposed building such federalism into the constitution, fearing it will lead to the fracturing of Iraq into separate countries.

“We need more time to negotiate,” a leading Sunni negotiator, Sheik Abdel Nasser Janabi, said yesterday. “I see an attempt to exclude the Arab Sunnis.”

Yesterday, Shiites and Kurds appeared to be moving toward using their majority in the National Assembly to approve a draft of the constitution over Sunni objections. Although some Shiite negotiators were publicly expressing hope that they would achieve a consensus with Sunnis and meet Monday’s deadline, Sunni leaders complained that they have been invited only to one meeting during the past week.

“The meetings have not been serious ones, and time is running out,” Sunni negotiator Saleh Mutlaq said. “We do not want a constitution that is molded in the final moments and then thrust upon us to sign.”

In response, Sunnis and some disgruntled Shiites are threatening to take the fight to the polls and try to defeat the constitution when it is presented to Iraqi voters in an October 15 referendum.

“Everyone is getting ready for a big battle,” a political-science professor at the University of Baghdad, Hassan Bazzaz, said.

A source close to the talks, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of negotiations, said that Shiite and Kurdish representatives had basically abandoned hopes of a three-way deal. The Sunni position, he said, is “directly contrary to what the others want.”

Even acting on their own, Kurds and Shiites would need to reach agreement on several difficult issues, chiefly related to how to divide Iraq’s oil wealth. Kurds seek to specify in the constitution how oil revenue will be divided between the national and local governments. Shiites prefer to leave such details out of the documents, according to a Shiite leader, Saad Jawad.

Last week’s vote of approval also was delayed by debate over women’s rights and the degree to which Islamic Sharia law would be imposed in Iraq.

If negotiators do not reach an agreement today, legislators can again approve a delay. The National Assembly will be disbanded, however, if it fails to approve a constitution to put before the voters. New parliamentary elections would be conducted by the end of the year, and the process of writing a charter would start anew – a delay strongly opposed by the Bush administration.

In recent days, Sunni Arab groups have organized protest rallies in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Baghdad, where thousands of their followers have chanted their opposition to any draft that does not take into account their concerns.

In Mosul, the Muslim Scholars Association is preparing a religious edict, or fatwa, that would order Sunni followers to vote no in referendum if clerics determine that the final draft “violates Islamic fundamentals,” according to an attorney for the chapter, Othman Ali Khalid.

Last week, representatives for Sunni groups met with a National Assembly coalition affiliated with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to discuss ways that the two factions could jointly work to defeat the constitution.

“Our views on this issue are aligned,” an official with the Iraqi Islamic Party in Baqubah, Auf Rahoomi Majid, said.

Both say they fear the draft constitution will lead to the breakup of Iraq.

“We are preparing to lobby our people against the constitution,” a member of the National Assembly and former editor of an al-Sadr-leaning newspaper, Fatah Sheik,said. “We would rather dissolve the National Assembly than pass a constitution that would dissolve Iraq.”

For weeks, Sunni political parties and clerics have been urging their followers to register to vote in the referendum, a stark contrast to the January 30 parliamentary election, during which most Sunnis stayed home.

“We will go to each and every city to explain our view,” one of the Sunni Arab negotiators, Sheik Hassan Zaydan, said.

A Shiite-Kurd power play would represent a major setback for the Bush administration, which has lobbied for the inclusion of Sunni voices and the drafting of a constitution acceptable to them. Along with the development of capable Iraqi security forces, coaxing Sunni Arabs into the political process is the primary American strategy for blunting the insurgency.

A strong Sunni Arab push to defeat the constitution is certain to further strain Iraq’s frayed ethnic fabric.

A Sunni Arab consultant on the committee charged with drafting the parliament, Hussein Shukir Faluji, warned that if Shiite and Kurd legislators attempt to override Sunni concerns, “We will start a revolution.”