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Tony Blair to meet Kurdistan president
Massoud Barzani
31.10.2005
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London, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair meets Monday with the
president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region for
talks likely to focus on the Dec. 15 parliamentary
elections.
Masoud Barzani, a veteran Kurdish guerrilla leader,
will be joined at the talks by Iraq's planning
minister Barham Salih.
Salih told British Broadcasting Corp. radio he would
be asking Blair for "sustained support as we go
through the next stage of the political process in
Iraq."
He acknowledged the violence plaguing Iraq, but
denied the country had slipped into a sectarian
civil war.
"There are tensions in Iraqi society, I don't deny
that. We are emerging from 35 years of brutal
dictatorship that pursued policies of ethnic and
sectarian discrimination," Salih told the BBC. "But
we are making progress.
The terrorists are trying to deepen the polarization
of Iraqi society and create a civil war scenario.
It's incumbent on us in the Iraqi political
leadership, and I hope that the international
community will continue to be with us, to make sure
that the terrorists will not win."
Britain has some 8,500 troops in Iraq, headquartered
in the southern city of Basra, and has said it will
not withdraw until Iraqi forces are capable of
maintaining security themselves.
The Kurds, Washington's most reliable allies in
Iraq, comprise 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq's
estimated 26 million people. Together with the
Shiite majority, they had been oppressed for decades
by the Sunni Arab minority.
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British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Photo: AFP
Massoud Barzani
President of Kurdistan
Region (Iraq)
Iraqi Planning Minister
Dr.Barham Saleh
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Since the first Gulf War, the Kurds _ under the
protection of U.S. and British air patrols _ have
run large parts of territory they had historically
populated in northern Iraq. Huge numbers of Kurds
also live in southeastern Turkey, Syria and
neighboring Iran. The minority people have never had
a country of their own.
AP
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