|
We
are negotiating in good faith because a new
constitution, a fresh start, is in our interests.
The Kurdistan Alliance includes Kurds, Turkmen,
Chaldo-Assyrians and others. It holds 77 seats in
the 275-strong Iraqi National Assembly. Its duty is
to advance Iraq’s democratisation and end the
centralised despotism of the Ba’athists.
However, we are not in Baghdad to negotiate away
Kurdistan’s rights. We must keep the autonomy with
which we have been able to safeguard our region’s
security, ensure relative prosperity and educate our
people so that women as well as men play an equal
role in society and politics. We have and shall
maintain the highest standards of protections for
national and religious minorities.
We must have restitution for the wrongs committed
against our people. In Kirkuk, an integral part of
Kurdistan, historically and geographically, our
people were expelled, and the provincial boundaries
manipulated. There must be a timetabled referendum,
on a fair suffrage and with the right boundaries, to
enable the Kirkuk governorate to join the rest of
Kurdistan.
Critics cynically suggest that our position is
motivated by oil, specifically the oil fields in the
city of Kirkuk, and by a desire for independence. We
certainly regard it as an outrage that one of the
world’s largest oil fields sits astride a
disgracefully and deliberately neglected city.
In truth, oil has so far been a curse for us all.
Had there been no oil, Mr Hussein and his Ba’athists
would not have fought us over Kirkuk, carried out
expulsions, infused the region with settlers or
gerrymandered the boundaries to tip the balance
against the Kurdish and Turkman peoples. Properties
were confiscated, and citizenship and other records
falsified. Even the name of the Kirkuk governorate,
within which the city lies, was changed. When Mr
Hussein fell, only a handful of Kurds were working
in the oil industry. The reversal of Mr Hussein’s
crimes must be de jure, democratic, transparent and
enshrined in the new constitution.
Kurdistan is willing, however, to separate the
issues of territory and oil. The benefits of oil
should be fairly distributed. Revenue sharing must
be equitable, and no Baghdad government must ever
again be able to blackmail us (by depriving us of
our per capita entitlements).
Regional ownership of natural resources is critical
to the creation of the strong federal regions that
will give all Iraqis the decentralised democracy and
new voluntary union, the truly shared country, that
we need. Detailed mechanisms to ensure
revenue-sharing may be worked out now or later.
The currently exploited oil field in Kirkuk may be
organised to generate federal, regional and local
revenues for the benefit of all in Iraq. But
Kurdistan must have full ownership of our currently
unexploited natural resources, to consolidate our
development and ensure that we never again suffer
the predations of a genocidal regime in Baghdad.
Kirkuk is but one of Kurdistan’s red lines in the
negotiation of the permanent constitution. We must
keep the legal autonomy that our region has had
since 1991 when the US, Britain and France
established a safe haven in Kurdistan. A small
number of competences, such as foreign policy,
should remain the exclusive competence of Baghdad.
We must control our internal security, including the
lawful army of Kurdistan, the peshmerga.
The system we propose of regional ownership of
natural resources occurs in many leading
oil-exporting federations and is a view shared by
some of our leading Shia Arab colleagues.
Kurdistan’s leaders do not have a free hand either
to forget the past or to remake the future. The
decision to accept the constitution will not be made
by me or the president of Kurdistan, but by our
National Assembly, and by our people voting in a
referendum. If Kurdistan’s red lines are not met – a
fair referendum in Kirkuk, control of our natural
resources, recognition of our lawful army and
meaningful law-making powers – our people will
reject any new Iraqi constitution.
Last January, 2m Kurdistanis voted in an unofficial
referendum on independence: 98 per cent wanted to
separate from Iraq. If my colleagues and I are to
persuade them to be part of a new Iraq, they will
have to believe that their rights will be protected.
That is why we are working hard to get a viable and
lasting settlement.
The writer is prime minister of the Kurdistan
Regional Government
www.ft.com
Top |
® 
