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Kurds Undecided on Iraq Political
Alliance, Barzani
25.2.2005
"Kurds Undecided on Iraq Political Alliance - Leader" |
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BAGHDAD (Reuters)
- Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said Friday the
Kurds had not decided who to back in the race for
Iraq's prime minister, as negotiations over the
formation of the government looked set to be
protracted.
"No decision has been made," he told Reuters
Television when asked if the Kurds were planning to
ally with the Islamist Shi'ite politician Ibrahim
al-Jaafari or secular Shi'ite Iyad Allawi, who is
fighting to keep his job as prime minister. |
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Iraqi politicians are
engaged in intense post-election horse-trading for
the top positions in the next government and the
heads of ministries, negotiations complicated by
delicate ethnic and sectarian issues.
The Kurdish coalition is in a strong bargaining
position after coming second in last month's ballot,
with 25 percent of the vote giving it 75 seats in
the 275-seat national assembly.
Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),
one of the two main parties in the Kurdish
coalition, said the Kurds would seek important posts
in the new government.
He was diplomatic but firm on the sensitive issue of
oil-rich Kirkuk, the most ethnically diverse and
hotly contested city in the country.
"In the future we want Kirkuk to be an example of
ethnic, religious and national coexistence. But this
is after Kirkuk's identity is fixed as (part of)
Kurdistan," he said. |
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Thursday, Nechirvan
Barzani, Masoud's nephew and prime minister of the
Kurdish regional government, said the Kurds would
only agree to a deal on the formation of a new
national government if they were given control of
disputed areas in the north of the country,
including Kirkuk. |
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Thousands of Iraqi Kurds were pushed out of their
homes by Saddam Hussein as part of his "Arabisation"
program, when he sought to move Arabs into Kirkuk
and the surrounding area to increase his influence
and change the region's ethnic makeup.
The Kurds have repeatedly said that now Saddam is
gone, they want the areas back.
The issue of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of
Baghdad, is a big sticking point. The city's
population is split roughly in thirds among Kurds,
Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmen.
The Kurds dominated last month's local elections in
the city, taking 59 percent of the vote -- partly
due to a boycott by Arab and Turkmen parties over a
decision to allow Kurdish refugees, many camped on
the outskirts of town, to vote.
"Kirkuk's identity is Kurdish as the elections
proved," said Masoud Barzani.
The Kurds could give their backing to Iraq's main
Shi'ite alliance, which will have a slim majority in
the assembly but must cut a deal to secure the
two-thirds majority it needs to form a government.
The alliance chose Jaafari as its candidate for
prime minister.
Or they could support the group led by Allawi, which
won 40 seats in the assembly and is determined to
keep their leader at the country's helm.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
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