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KIRKUK, Iraq, Aug 14 (AFP) - 14h04 - Hundreds of
Iraqi Kurds demonstrated Sunday in Kirkuk calling
for self-determination in the constitution and
demanding a Kurdish identity for the northern oil
hub city.
The demonstrators, who organisers said numbered
1,500, also carried banners saying secularism and
women's rights should be enshrined in the draft
charter due to be finalised Monday.
"Kirkuk is Kurdish" and "Give us the right to
self-determination" were some of the slogans written
on the banners in Arabic, Kurdish and English, an
AFP correspondent witnessed.
The protestors, wearing Kurdish clothes and waving
their national flag, also chanted "Down with (Shiite
Iraqi premier Ibrahim) Jaafari".
The demonstration, in the centre of the ethnically
mixed city 250 kilometres (155 miles) north of
Baghdad, was a "clear message to the constitution
drafting committee not to ignore Kurdish rights,"
one of the organisers, Sattar Mustafa, told AFP.
Mustafa accused Jaafari's government of ignoring
Kurdish demands: "We need to bring displaced Kurds
back to Kirkuk and drive out the Arabs who were
brought in by Saddam Hussein's fascist regime," he
said.
"We have struggled for our rights, we have tens of
thousands of martyrs to dictatorship and we are
ready to prolong our fight to get the right to
self-determination," said another Kurd, Shirzad
Abdel Khalek, from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party.
On Friday Iraqi leaders said the situation in Kirkuk,
whose demography was altered by Saddam Hussein by
expelling Kurds and replacing them with Arabs, be "normalised"
by December 15 at the latest.
Normalisation could revolve around helping thousands
of expelled Kurds to return to their lands which
were handed to Arabs, mainly Shiites from the south,
by the former Iraqi president.
AFP
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