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WASHINGTON, June 15 (AFP) - 20h51 - The United
States has "serious and credible" reports from Iraq
of Kurdish mistreatment of minority Arabs and
Turkmen in the country's north, US officials said
here Wednesday.
The officials said they had expressed "serious
concern" over reported conduct by the Kurds, who the
Washington Post said had abducted hundreds of Arabs
and Turkmens in the city of Kirkuk and hauled them
off to prisons.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack would not
go into details of the report, but rejected the
Post's suggestions that the US military backed the
raids and mass detentions.
"We have had serious and credible information about
allegations of extra-judicial conduct, both arrests
and detentions of individuals in the northern areas
of Iraq, McCormack said.
"These allegations and these reports are very
serious concern to us, and we have raised our
concerns in a forthright way with the authorities
involved or who we believe to be involved," he said.
McCormack would not directly identify the Kurds as
culprits but stressed the US commitment to
protecting minority rights. A department official,
who asked not to be named, confirmed the allegations
focused on the Kurds.
Kirkuk, a major oil city, has been a volatile
cauldron of communal tensions with the Kurds, Arabs
and Turkmen all jockeying for position since the
ouster of Saddam Hussein by US-led forces two years
ago.
The Post said Kurdish security forces had
transported hundreds of Arabs and Turkmens to
prisons in the Kurdish cities of Arbil and
Sulaimaniyah with the backing of the US military.
McCormack vehemently denied any US involvement.
"Our coalition forces, according to every report
that I have, not only were not involved in these
activities, but in fact, raised their concerns about
the fact that they had serious and credible reports"
about them, he said.
The spokesman stressed the need for "adherence to
the rule of law, the importance of building and
supporting institutions that enforce the rule of
law, and our strong support for respect for minority
rights."
The principles were contained in the transitional
administrative lawadopted during the US occupation
of Iraq, McCormack said, "and we would expect all
Iraqi officials to abide by those principles."
McCormack also reiterated that the future of Kirkuk
was still under discussion and "it's an Iraqi issue
to resolve."
But he added, "Certainly any pre-existing tensions
or grievances need to be resolved within the rule of
law. There's no excuse for going outside the rule of
law to try to resolve any of these pre-existing
tensions."
AFP
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