Talabani interview with Radio Free Europe 5.10.2005

RFE/RL: Mr. President, you and other Kurdish leaders have criticized Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja'fari's government for not abiding by the terms of the alliance set between the Kurds and Shi'a following the election in January. Can you tell us whether the Kurds will remain aligned with the Shi'a following the next election?

Talabani: Surely the Kurds will remain aligned in a strong alliance with the Shi'ites. We had historical friendship and cooperation against the dictatorship [of Saddam Hussein]. Such differences that have appeared among the cabinet [members] will not affect the strategic alliance between the Kurds and Shi'ites.

RFE/RL: As a lawyer, do you believe that Saddam will get a fair trial in Iraq?

Talabani: Saddam will have a very just and fair trial in Iraq. Now he is enjoying all kinds of freedom for a prison -- he has television, radio with him, books, he can write, he can read, he can contact everyone. But Saddam Hussein is a war criminal. He committed crimes against the Iraqi people, against our neighbors, against Iranians, against Kuwaitis. For that I think he will deserve to be presented to the court as a war criminal and when this is sentenced the sentence must be respected.

RFE/RL: Some Turkmen groups in northern Iraq say that they face pressure from Kurdish authorities. For example, they say Kurdish authorities are encouraging Kurds to resettle Kirkuk to change the ethnic balance in the city. Are ethnic tensions mounting in Iraq?

Talabani: This is a false accusation. This is not true at all. What is going on is that those deportees are going back home, and it is according to the decisions of Iraqi opposition conferences [prior to the fall of Hussein's regime], according to Article 58, that deportees from Kirkuk, Kurds and Turkomans, must go back and those who were brought [to Kirkuk] according to the ethnic-cleansing policy of Saddam Hussein must go back home.

What is going on is that such extremist Turkomans were exaggerating their numbers. They said that we are 3-4 million, while they are less than 1 million. And the election proved that they are not [numerous]. They could not get more than 90,000 votes from what they claimed is 4 million Turkomans. Now when they saw that the [vast] majority of the Kirkuk area is voting for the Kurdistan list, they must go and make some kind of accusations. They must go and find some kind of pretext in their hands to tell their masters why Kirkuk is not with us because Kurds are sending people.

RFE/RL: As our final question, we want to ask you about the psychological impact of Ba'athist rule on Iraq. Do you think the government is doing enough to address this issue. For example, if the government had enacted some kind of Truth and Reconciliation Commission as South Africa did, do you think that the insurgency would be as far along as it is now?

Talabani: I think the government is not doing very well. Second, the terrorist activities are not only [by] Iraqis. The [vast] majority of them are coming from outside -- Al-Qaeda, Ansar al-Islam, al-Zarqawi's group, they came from outside the country. They came to invade Iraq. For that, those people who are extremists, who declared the war of annihilation against Shi'ites and Kurds in Iraq will continue their terrorist activities. But I think that the Iraqi terrorists who are now engaging in the war gradually will come back to the political process in Iraq. Of course, the government must help them to come back to the democratic process.

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