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Paris
(AsiaNews) – Talks and negotiations between Shiites
and Kurds are a good sign. They show that dialogue
is the way to find a place for all Iraqi communities
in the new government.
Saywan Barzani, envoy of the government of Iraq’s
Kurdish region, is optimistic about the future
despite news that the Kurdish block and the Shiite
alliance have failed so far to form a new Iraqi
government.
“Finding a compromise between the parties will be
difficult,” he said, “but I am certain that the
Constituent Assembly will build a new Iraq for
everyone, without any distinctions”.
The two sides that won the January 30 elections
announced yesterday evening that they could not
reach an agreement before the first session of
Iraq’s new parliament scheduled for this Wednesday.
Kurds and Shiites hold a two third majority in the
new National Assembly.
Saywan Barzani, nephew of Massoud Barzani, leader of
the Kurdistan Democratic Party, explained that
Kirkuk remains the stumbling block.
“We are demanding the government ensure the
immediate return of the 100,000 people deported by
Saddam’s regime and the repatriation of Arab
colonists to central and southern Iraq,” he said.
“Shiite leaders want to wait and have the
constitution drafted first”.
Iraq’s new parliament will meet for the first time
on March 16, a day Kurds will never forget,
according to Barzani. It was on this day, in 1988,
that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against
the city of Hallabija, killing four to five thousand
people.
The Kurds, who are 3 million out of Iraq’s 27
million people, want the Presidency to go to their
leader, Jalal Talabani; they are also seeking the
ministries of Finance, Interior and Defence as well
as the incorporation of the city of Kirkuk into the
federal region of Kurdistan. For them Kirkuk is
their true capital and its immediate region is also
the oldest oil-producing area of the country.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of Dawa (a
predominantly-Shiite, conservative Islamic party),
could become the next Prime Minister.
Barzani said he was convinced that all parties agree
at least on one point: federalism. “The future
Iraq,” he explained, “will be federal and
democratic. Fundamentalists will not influence the
constitution-making process to force the
introduction of Islamic law”.
Any frictions or differences of opinion that appear
now should not be seen in a negative light, the
Kurdish envoy said. “They are proof,” he stressed,
“of a common will to bring everyone—Shiites,
Assyrians, Kurds, Chaldeans, Sunnis, Turkmen— into
the new government. It won’t be easy, but a new Iraq
won’t be possible if it doesn’t include everyone,
minorities as well”.
http://www.asianews.it
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