Baghdad, Iraq ? Iraq’s president averted a crisis Thursday by promising Sunni Arabs a big say in drafting the constitution – clearing the way for them to join a Shiite-dominated panel now working around the clock in a cavernous, dusty auditorium.

Sunni Arab support is vital to the lawmakers who gather inside the most heavily fortified area of the capital, trying to ignore assassination attempts, death threats and suicide attacks as they wrangle over sensitive charter details and sometimes give way to shouted arguments.

Iraq’s 275-seat parliament has until mid-August to adopt a new constitution that hasn’t yet been written, must be acceptable to Iraq’s voters, and is expected to deal with the tough issues of role of Islam in public life and the type of electoral system Iraq should have.

The document will face a nationwide vote two months later. If adopted, it will provide the basis for a new election to be held by December.

“It’s all down to time,” said Mariam Taleb al-Rayes, a Shiite legislator and one of nine women on the 55-deputy committee that meets in a second-story room behind dusty windows taped with a plastic coating to prevent the glass from shattering in case of explosions. “We are working day and night.”

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, left, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, center, and EU Foreign Affairs Commissioner Javier Solana, right, speak to reporters after a meeting Thursday in Baghdad.

President Jalal Talabani, a Sunni Kurd, responded Thursday to threats by Sunni Arabs to boycott the process unless they were given more committee seats and their members were allowed to vote.

“We have decided to add about 20 to 25 members from Sunnis in the committee, which will draft the constitution with full rights like other members who were elected by the parliament,” Talabani said after meeting with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. “This will be done very soon and we are discussing to finalize the making of this decision.”

Straw said he was confident Iraq would meet its deadlines and prove its detractors wrong.

Straw and three other senior European Union officials were on a historic visit to Baghdad, the EU’s first since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime two years ago.

The trip came ahead of a June 22 international conference on Iraq to be held in Brussels.