The following message (subject: Arabs in Kirkuk also want American guarantees) was posted by Kirkuk News, on 17/12/2009 03:41:07.

Arabs in Kirkuk also want American guarantees

Kirkuk – Also the Arabs in Kirkuk want guarantees that their interests are protected from America. Earlier America ensured that they would support a census and article 140, if the Kurds would be more flexible to the Iraqi election law. The Turkmen say the American guarantees are an interference in internal issues.

Ahmed Obeidi, an Arab official of the provincial council of Kirkuk, told the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, that the Arabic parties in Kirkuk are not American guarantees for the Kurds, if this isn’t against the interests of other people of the city. Obeidi asks Washington to give the same guarantees to Arabs and Turkmen.

Obeidi said that Arab parties are not against implementing article 140 or a population census of the people in Kirkuk, as long Arab and Turkmen demands aren’t forgotten. But other Arabic officials are against it. Omer Juburi, a Arab deputy for Kirkuk, says the ‘American guarantees to the Kurds will result that Kirkuk becomes under the influence of the Kurdish government’.

Turkmen officials from Kirkuk said they were against any interference from outside and plans to divide the city of Kirkuk.

Earlier the Kurdish president Massoud Barzani said the Americans for the first time gave their support to Kurdish rights and would support the implementation of article 140. The article asks for a referendum in the disputed regions, to decide if the regions stay under the governance of Baghdad or the Kurdistan Regional Government in Erbil. The American support resulted in much tumult among the Iraqi politicians

http://www.rudaw.net