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DUKAN,
Iraq, July 2 (AFP) - 16h08 - Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani and Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said
Saturday Kurds driven out of the contested city of
Kirkuk must be allowed back now and not after a new
constitution is in place.
"I am going back to Baghdad tomorrow and I will
demand in the name of the people of Kurdistan and
Masoud Barzani that article 58 be applied
immediately," Talabani told reporters in a press
conference with Barzani, Kurdistan's president, at
the northern resort town of Dukan.
"The United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite) and the
Kurdistan alliance agreed on this before the
government was formed."
Shiites swept the January parliamentary election but
were unable to form a government without entering
into an alliance with the second-place Kurds.
More than two months of intense negotiations between
the two sides culminated in a memorandum of
understanding that said the issue of Kirkuk would be
handled in accordance with article 58 of the
Transitional Administrative Law, the interim laws
passed under the previous US-led occupation
authority.
Both sides agreed that the principals of the TAL
would form the nucleus of the new constitution,
which must be drafted by August 15 and put to a
national referendum by October 15, according to the
political timetable.
Talabani said that, in accordance with article 58,
Kurdish families deported from Kirkuk during ousted
leader Saddam Hussein's arabisation drive must be
allowed back now and Sunni Arabs taken back to their
original homes in central and southern Iraq.
"Jaafari's government must implement this
immediately," repeated Talabani. He, along with
Barzani, fought Saddam's regime for decades to
secure Kurdish rights and managed to carve out the
autonomous Kurdistan region in the early 1990s.
Talbani, who became Iraq's first Kurdish president
in April, said the government must financilly assist
resettling Kurds and Arabs.
Barzani, who recently became president of Kurdistan,
said he totally agreed with Talabani. He has long
pressed for a Kurdish federation with Kirkuk as its
capital.
The Kurdish leaders did not say what they would do
if their demands were not fulfilled, but the
announcement is likely to anger Sunni Arabs and
Turkmen who have long spoken about a Kurdish
conspiracy to drive them out of Kirkuk.
It could also cause tensions with the Shiites. Prime
Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite, said in an
interview last week that the issue of the northern
oil hub of Kirkuk was complicated and could take
some time to resolve.
AFP
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