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BLOOD
and grief marked the years that Shoresh Ismail
fought for freedom from Iraqi rule. He was wounded
seven times in the 1980s, when he was a commander in
the Kurdish peshmerga irregulars.
More than half his volunteers were killed. His
father was murdered and his brother shot by Iraqi
agents outside Sulaimaniyah’s main mosque in 1986
for no other reason than his blood tie to Shoresh.
But since the fall of Saddam, the Kurds have enjoyed
a calm and comparative peace that the rest of Iraq’s
battle-fatigued people would envy. Nowhere is this
more obvious that on the streets of Sulaimaniyah,
where life is almost back to normal.
Now 48, Mr Ismail is director of the Establishment
for Martyrs of the Kurdistan Revolution, a pension
scheme funded by the Kurdish regional government for
the families of killed peshmerga. Every day he hears
stories of torture, execution and disappearance,
which are all too common among northern Iraq’s 5
million Kurds. But at least the people can speak out
without fear of retribution.
He has as much reason as any Kurd to hope for
independence, but that is not his priority.
“Independence is still a wish for all of us,” he
said, “but reality comes first. It is a time for
negotiation and the creation of a new Iraq that
guarantees Kurdish rights within the constitution.”
Kurdish nationalism continues to concern those
trying to unite Iraq, but most Kurds remain
pragmatic after the elections gave them 77 seats in
the 275-member National Assembly, a powerful voice
that will be enhanced if Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish
leader, becomes president.
“We are landlocked,” Muhammad Tawfiq, a leading
member of the politburo for the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK), said. “We have to be realistic.
What we want is Iraq to remain secular and a
parliamentary democracy, Kurdistan to exist in a
federal set-up and for human rights to be
guaranteed.”
Such reasonable tones are underlined by the
experience of the Kurds in the past decade. While
the rest of the country has been racked by violence
and criminality, the Kurdish region has remained an
oasis of comparative liberalism and peace under its
own functioning administration.
Contention remains over the issue of Kirkuk,
however, which sits on 40 per cent of Iraq’s oil
reserves. It is regarded as Kurdish, but lies
outside the borders of the three provinces
controlled by the regional government. Kurds want it
back, along with other disputed territories such as
Khanaqin. Neighbouring countries such as Turkey,
fearing that it will allow Kurds an economic
platform for independence, are determined that it
remains outside Kurdish control.
The Kurds have proposed that Kirkuk’s oil remains a
national Iraqi asset and that in return Kurds should
receive a percentage of Iraq’s overall oil revenue
proportional to their population.
The Kurds say that the future of Kirkuk and Khanaqin
must be decided over the summer and publicly backed
by the National Assembly before the new constitution
is drawn up.
“All we say to the Arab political parties is ‘give
us a good constitution, give us our disputed
territories and give us a good federalism and we’ll
sell the idea to the Kurdish people’,” Mr Tawfiq
said. “But as for Kirkuk, if we aren’t happy we’ll
block the constitution.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
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