|
SULEIMANIYA,
Iraq, July 24 (AFP) - 11h16 - Around 500
intellectuals and students marched through the city
of Suleimaniya on Saturday to demand an independent
Kurdistan, incorporating Iraq’s main northern oil
centre of Kirkuk.
Holding aloft banners saying "Independence for
Kurdistan," and "Kirkuk: Kurdish City," the protest
flouted a ban issued by the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, which controls the northeastern Iraqi
province of Suleimaniya.
Delegates submitted a memorandum to the PUK’s
provincial administration.
The document, a copy of which was obtained by AFP,
called for Kurdistan’s independence from Iraq and
for former strongman Saddam Hussein to be tried by
an international court in which Kurds have a voice.
It also rejected the former regime’s policy of "arabisation,"
in which Kurds say thousands of their people were
forced to flee the country’s oil-rich areas to make
way for a Saddam-inspired Arab resettlement policy.
Demonstrations calling for an independent Kurdistan
are rare in Iraq, where neither of the two
mainstream Kurdish parties, the PUK, nor its rival
Kurdistan Democratic Party, include independence as
an aim in party literature.
Both organisations have subscribed to the country’s
interim constitution, which was signed into law
under the former US-led occupation authority and
enshrines the principal of a federal Iraq.
Top |
® 