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BAGHDAD: Iraqi Kurds yesterday rejected
suggestions the country should be proclaimed an
Islamic state as the northern region’s autonomous
parliament debated the country’s draft constitution
ahead of a national conference on the issue today.
Massud Barzani, president of Iraq’s autonomous
Kurdistan, said the Kurds would not compromise on
their demands that include a federal Iraq and the
incorporation of the northern oil centre of Kirkuk
in their autonomous region.
“We will not accept that Iraq’s identity is
Islamic,” Barzani told an emergency session of the
autonomous Kurdistan parliament. He also rejected
suggestions that Iraq be termed an Arab nation.
“Let Arab Iraq be part of the Arab nation – we are
not,” the Kurdish leader said.
Barzani, one of the leaders of the 4.5 million Kurds
in Iraq, will take part in a national conference of
top Iraqi leaders today in Baghdad in a bid to break
the deadlock on agreeing to a new draft
constitution.
“This is a golden chance for Kurds and Kurdistan –
if we don’t do what is important for Kurdistan,
there will be no second chance. We will not make our
final decision in Baghdad, the Kurdish parliament
will decide,” he said.
The Kurds want a constitution that will guarantee
federalism and preserve their region’s autonomy,
wrested from Saddam Hussein 14 years ago.
Barzani also insisted his region would retain its
Peshmerga militias, despite calls by Baghdad that
they be incorporated in the national army.
The emergency meeting of the Kurdish parliament
prompted a two-day postponement of the national
conference to break the constitutional deadlock.
The deadlock revolves around federalism, what the
official languages of the new Iraq will be, the
relation between religion and state, the rights of
women and the future of Kirkuk.
“We are worried about comments from some on the
committee,” said the regional parliament’s speaker,
Adnan Mufti, who is also a senior official in the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the former rebel group
of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.
Mufti said the Kurds were ready to endorse the
charter “if all parties understand a constitution
should be based on rights for all Iraqis.”
He added: “There is no way to have a unified Iraq
without federalism.” Many leaders of Iraq’s Arab
majority – both Shia and Sunni – have voiced concern
that federalism could open the way to secession,
although the Kurds insist it is the best way of
preventing the breakup of Iraq.
Agencies
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