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Iraq Kurds will participate in Kirkuk
polls- Zebari 4.1.2005
BAGHDAD,
(Reuters) Iraqi Kurds will take part in the Kirkuk
provincial elections, a senior Kurdish politician said
today, defusing a political crisis that had threatened
to undermine polls in the strategic oil city.
Kurdish leaders made the decision after meeting with
officials in charge of the ballot to discuss the
franchise for thousands of Kurdish refugee who say
Kirkuk is their home, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar
Zebari said.
''Kurdish participation is assured and guaranteed,''
said Zebari. |
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''The
Electoral Commission head met with the Kurdish
leadership yesterday about the problem and we are
optimistic about the solution,'' he told a news
conference.
The provincial elections are due to take place
simultaneously with national polls on January 30.
Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen lay claim to the ethnically
mixed city in northern Iraq, where sectarian and
ethnic violence has simmered since Saddam Hussein
was toppled last year.
The two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic
Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, have
been refusing to field candidates for the Kirkuk
provincial elections, saying registration favoured
Arabs who moved there during Saddam's rule under an
''Arabisation'' policy designed to undermine Kurdish
influence.
Nechirvan Barzani, the KDP's second-in-command, said
last week Arab voting rights in Kirkuk should be
curtailed and threatened to boycott the polls if the
Kurds were not satisfied with registration.
Kurds regard Kirkuk as a Kurdish city and have
remained vague on whether they will demand it to be
part of a federal region they hope to be enshrined
in the new constitution.
Statistics on the city were kept secret during
Saddam's rule. A 1957 census found the numbers of
Turkmen, Arab, and Kurds to be roughly equal.
The polls will elect provincial councils for Kirkuk
and the rest of Iraq's regions, a Kurdish assembly
for the Arbil and Sulaimaniya provinces and a
parliament due to appoint a government and draft a
new constitution.
Reuters.com
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