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SULAIMANIYA, Iraq, - From his snow-covered
mountain fortress, Massoud Barzani sees little other
than the rugged hills of Iraqi Kurdistan and
green-clad militiamen posted along the serpentine
road below.
The border with the Arab-dominated rest of Iraq is
far off. Baghdad lies even farther off and, if
Kurdish leaders like Mr. Barzani have their way,
will fade almost entirely out of the picture here.
Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have
made known their determination to retain a degree of
autonomy in the territory they have dominated for
more than a decade. Now, after their strong
performance in the elections last month, Kurdish
leaders are for the first time spelling out specific
demands.
From control of oil reserves to the retention of the
Kurdish militia, the pesh merga, to full authority
over taxation, the requested powers add up to an
autonomy that is hard to distinguish from
independence.
"The fact remains that we are two different
nationalities in Iraq - we are Kurds and Arabs," Mr.
Barzani said as he sat in a reception hall at his
headquarters in Salahuddin. "If the Kurdish people
agree to stay in the framework of Iraq in one form
or another as a federation, then other people should
be grateful to them."
Kurdish autonomy is expected to be one of the most
divisive issues during the drafting of the new
constitution, alongside the debate over the role of
Islam in the new Iraq. The Kurds' demands are
already alarming Iraq's Arabs, particularly the
majority Shiites, and raising tensions with
neighboring countries, where governments are trying
to suppress Kurdish separatist movements within
their own borders.
In interviews, top Kurdish leaders like Mr. Barzani,
head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, set out a
list of demands that are more far-reaching than the
Kurds have articulated in the past:
>They want the ownership of any natural
resources, including oilfields, and the power to
determine how the revenues are split with the
central government.
>They want authority over the formidable
militia called the pesh merga, estimated at up to
100,000 members, in defiance of the American goal of
dismantling ethnic and sectarian armies. The pesh
merga would be under nominal national oversight, but
actual control would remain with regional
commanders. No other armed forces would be allowed
to enter Kurdistan without permission from Kurdish
officials.
>They want power to appoint officials to work
in and operate ministries in Kurdistan, which would
parallel those in Baghdad. These would include the
ministries that oversee security and the economy.
>They want authority over fiscal policy,
including oversight of taxes and the power to decide
how much tax revenue goes to Baghdad. The national
government would make monetary policy but would not
be able to raise revenue from Kurdistan without the
agreement of Kurdish officials.
Moreover, the region's borders would be changed, in
the Kurds' vision. The "green line" that defines the
boundary between the Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq
would be officially pushed south, to take in the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk, the city of Khanaqin and
the area of Sinjar. Kurdish leaders argue that this
would just reestablish historic borders where Mr.
Hussein had drastically altered the demographics by
displacing Kurds with Arab settlers.
"It must be clear in the constitution what is for
the Kurds and what is for the Iraqi government,"
said Fouad Hussein, an influential independent
Kurdish politician.
The fierce political drive of the Kurds, who make up
a fifth of Iraq's 28 million people, became apparent
during the Jan. 30 elections, when turnout across
the three provinces of Iraqi Kurdistan - Sulaimaniya,
Erbil and Dohuk - averaged 84 percent, well above
the national average of 58 percent.
Those votes secured for the main Kurdish alliance 75
of 275 seats in the constitutional assembly. The
alliance finished second, behind the main Shiite
slate, which ended up with a slim majority of 140
seats, which is short of the two-thirds needed to
form a government.
The Kurds are now in the position of kingmaker,
courted by the Shiite parties and competing smaller
groups like the secular slate led by Prime Minister
Ayad Allawi.
The Kurds are asking for Mr. Barzani's main rival,
Jalal Talabani, to be chosen as president. More
audacious is their insistence on broad powers for
their region under a federal system. The autonomy
envisioned by the Kurds is likely to inflame the
formerly ruling Sunni Arabs, who lack officially
authorized militias and rich natural resources in
their own traditional territory.
But it is the Shiites, having finally achieved here
after decades of struggle, who are likely to offer
the strongest opposition to Kurdish autonomy.
The top Shiite clerics "are very difficult," said
Nawzad Hadi Mawlood, the governor of Erbil Province,
the largest Kurdish province. "They're hard
negotiators," he said. "They're inflexible. The Shia
do not want to admit the federal system for the
Kurds."
Many Shiite leaders complain that the Kurds press
too many demands and already exercise power in the
interim government out of proportion with their
numbers. Kurds hold the posts of deputy prime
minister, foreign minister and the head of
Parliament, as well as one of two vice presidencies.
"There is a sense that the Kurds have taken more
privileges than the others," said Sheik Humam
Hamoudi, a senior official of the Supreme Council
for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a powerful
Shiite party. "So we advise the Kurds to be more
Iraqi."
Besides holding more than a quarter of the seats in
the constitutional assembly, the Kurds have another
powerful tool in the transitional law approved last
spring. Under that law, a two-thirds vote in any
three provinces can veto a national referendum on
the constitution. Kurdish leaders could easily
mobilize such a vote.
The relatively secular Kurds might also make a deal
with the religious Shiites in which the Kurds would
gain significant autonomy in return for agreeing not
to block Shiite efforts to establish an Islamic form
of government elsewhere in Iraq.
Kurdish leaders argue that their push for federalism
is nothing more than an attempt to maintain the
status quo. Iraqi Kurdistan, a mountainous area the
size of Switzerland, has existed as an autonomous
region since the end of the Persian Gulf war of
1991, when the American military established a
no-flight zone in northern Iraq.
"Like all the nations of the world, all the people
of the world, we have the ability to rule ourselves,
and we've proven that in the last 14 years," Hezha
Anoor, 18, said as he and his friends stood outside
a Chinese restaurant here in Sulaimaniya, the
capital of eastern Kurdistan.
Iraqi Kurdish leaders maintain that while they would
like to see an independent Kurdistan in their
lifetimes, secession is not practical now.
The threat from countries like Turkey is too great,
they say. And the economy of Kurdistan, which
depended on smuggling during the United Nations
sanctions against Iraq imposed in the 1990's, would
benefit from sharing in revenues from the vast
southern oilfields, said Barham Salih, the deputy
prime minister of Iraq and a top Kurdish official.
Yet if the Kurdish leaders do succeed in winning
strong autonomy, that could inspire greater calls
for independence. "Iraq is a beast," Pire Mughan,
63, a grizzled poet and former pesh merga fighter,
said as he sipped tea in the shadow of the citadel
of Erbil. "Arabs are beasts, because their entire
history is one of killings and massacres.
"I didn't vote for anyone in the elections, because
I believe in independence, not in federalism. If I
had voted, it would have meant voting for
federalism, and that would have been treason for
future generations."
Dexter Filkins contributed reporting from Baghdad
for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com
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