(VOVworld) - Iraqi President Fuad Masum said on Wednesday that Iraq's constitution should be amended rather than bypassed, in an apparent criticism of the Premier's plan to abolish the constitutionally mandated vice presidency.

Iraqi President Fuad Masum said Iraq's constitution should be amended rather than bypassed (AFP Photo/Marwan Ibrahim)

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered Iraq's three vice presidential positions to be scrapped and their funding reallocated as part of a reform drive aimed at curbing rampant corruption and government waste. Masum called on his website for "protecting the constitution and not bypassing it and not stopping working with it." Abadi, in a statement on his website, said "the reforms voted on by the cabinet and the parliament are constitutional and legal and he will not back down on them."