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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) 19.June- The new president of
Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region called on
parliament Sunday to recognize the Kurdish identity
of Kirkuk, the oil-rich and ethnically mixed city
that Kurds want to annex as their capital.
Masoud Barzani, the veteran Kurdish guerrilla leader
who was elected last week to lead Iraq's northern
Kurdish-dominated region, also called for a repeal
of "all demographic and political changes the former
regime implemented in Kirkuk and other Kurdish
areas."
Saddam Hussein promoted ethnic cleansing of the city
during his rule, deporting most Kurds - whom he saw
as subversives - while relocating fellow Arabs into
the northern city.
Since the first Gulf War, the Kurds - under the
protection of U.S. and British air patrols - have
run large parts of territory they had historically
populated in northern Iraq. Huge numbers of Kurds
also live in southeastern Turkey, Syria and
neighboring Iran. The minority people have never had
a country of their own.
Barzani's election last week by Iraqi Kurdistan's
regional council gave the region its first single
formal leader since it became autonomous under
U.S.-protection in 1991. Until last week, Barzani
had ruled a section of Iraqi Kurdistan, and his
one-time foe and now president of Iraq, Jalal
Talabani, was in charge of another.
Speaking before parliament in Baghdad, Barzani
called for the implementation of the right to return
to Kirkuk by all Iraqis as provided for in Iraq's
interim constitution and said "we must ...
acknowledge its Kurdish identity."
The Kurds, Washington's most reliable allies in
Iraq, comprise 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq's
estimated 26 million people. Together with the
Shiite majority, they had been oppressed for decades
by the Sunni Arab minority.
The question of whether Kirkuk should join the
Kurdish autonomous region or remain part of the
remainder of Iraq is expected to be settled in an as
yet unscheduled referendum. The city's 1 million
residents also include Arabs - both Sunni and Shiite
Muslims - as well as Turkomen, who are mostly
Sunnis.
The Kurds are also seeking to annex parts of the
province of Diyala close to the Iranian border,
arguing that they too are part of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Many of Iraq's majority Arabs suspect that the
Kurds, empowered by Saddam's ouster, will eventually
seek to secede from Iraq, something that some of
Iraq's neighbors - like Iran, Syria and Turkey -
will try to prevent for fear that it will ignite
secessionist sentiments among their own Kurdish
minorities.
AP
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