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BAGHDAD, Jan 10
(Reuters) - Iraq's two main Kurdish factions will
start forming a single administration for their
autonomous region in the next few days under a deal
they say will finally draw a line under the civil
war they fought in the 1990s.
The accord struck on Saturday and effective next
week sets detailed terms for sharing executive power
between the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) -- already
formally united under a Kurdistan parliament.
Officials insist the move has no bearing on their
stated commitment to remaining part of a federal
Iraq and is intended to make best use of the
autonomy from Baghdad first won under U.S. military
protection after the 1991 Gulf War.
Two years after that, fighting between the two
parties saw Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces intervene
and a peace forged under U.S. pressure in 1998 left
each running separate administrations from the
cities of Arbil (KDP) and Sulaimaniyah (PUK).
"It is a necessary step and a very important step
for the Kurds," said Barham Salih of the PUK,
formerly regional prime minister and now planning
minister in the Baghdad government.
"The Kurdish region has lived through a domestic war
that split it in two; now it's time to turn that
page and unite."
Under the merger agreement, the two parties, which
fought last year's two Iraqi national elections on a
joint ticket, will share out control of a coalition
regional government that shadows the ministries in
the central administration in Baghdad.
Arbil will be recognised as the capital of
Kurdistan, where relative peace has brought an
economic boom that contrasts sharply with the misery
that conflict has brought elsewhere.
Business investors have complained in the past about
bureaucratic rivalries between the two
administrations.
TWO-YEAR TERM
Sources from both parties said that the KDP, led by
Massoud Barzani, will head the government for two
years while the PUK, led by Jalal Talabani will
chair the parliament. The roles will then be
reversed. Barzani is already regional president
while Talabani is bidding to stay on as Iraq's
national head of state.
Some other groups -- including possibly the Kurdish
Islamic Union, which ate into the big parties' vote
in last month's Iraqi national election -- may also
get government posts.
Though Kurds often speak of a sovereign state for
their estimated 20 million people spread over four
countries, they are well aware neither their U.S.
ally nor the governments of Turkey, Syria, Iran and
Iraq support such a radical move.
"A state is the Kurds' dream but we are committed to
Iraq and to the political process," Salih said.
Kurdish leaders have bargained hard for sweeping
autonomy under the new Iraqi constitution ratified
in October.
Protected from Saddam's forces by U.S. air power,
the Kurds voted for a single regional legislature
and government in May 1992 and the KDP and PUK
struck a power-sharing accord.
Factional wrangling escalated into a civil war that
saw Barzani's KDP enlist Saddam's help against
Talabani's Iranian- backed PUK. Thousands were
killed and many more fled their homes as an
intra-Kurdish border formed. A U.S.-sponsored truce
backed by threats of a diplomatic embargo took hold
in 1998.
Reuters
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