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Leader
of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Jalal
Talabani declared his official candidacy for either
prime ministry or presidency yesterday and
determined that the issue of Kerkuk's (Kirkuk)
annexation to Kurdistan would be very significant in
terms of forming political alliances. Answering
questions of the reporters, Talabani said: "Kirkuk
is very important for Kurds. Therefore, we
participated in the elections on a single list. The
unofficial election result in Kirkuk is 75 percent
for the Kurds. It was claimed that there were four
million Turkmen living in Kirkuk but this has been
shown false in the elections. It was a free vote
free of intimidation in Kirkuk, the results are the
real election results."
Talabani repeated his position after Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's remarks on Kirkuk:
"I know Erdogan. He is a good politician. I think
there is a mistake in the translation of those
remarks. We did not like it. This country has
borders. Nobody has the right to intervene in the
internal affairs of nother country. If Turks claim
any rights over Kirkuk today, tomorrow the Arabs may
claim rights over Antakya and the Kurds could claim
Diyarbakir. No one should forget that it's
impossible to form a democracy in Iraq without the
Kurds."
Iraqi Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud
Barzani announced that they had determined a list
including 165 individuals with Talabani at the top
to make as many Kurds as possible participate in the
Iraqi parliament. Barzani said: "We, as all Kurds,
supported this list. After the official anouncement
of the Iraqi elections, Kurds who formerly had had
two separate parliaments will now have a single
parliament and administration."
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