|
Minister: Kurdistan 'Must Announce
Independence' on Nawroz March 21, 2007
6.12.2006 |
|
|
|
Erbil, Kurdistan
Region (Iraq), December 6, (eKurd.net), -- Iraqi
Kurdistan's culture minister has said his region
must declare its independence from Iraq on 21 March
2007 - the date of Nawroz, the traditional Kurdish
New Year.
"The central [Iraq] government treats the Kurdistan
region unfairly if one considers the role played by
Kurds in the current political process in Iraq,
while the US administration is deliberately ignoring
[the role of Kurds] in the local and regional
balance of power," Falak al-Din Kakai said on
Tuesday during a television chat show.
Besides his cabinet post, Kakai is also a senior
member of Iraqi Kurdistan president Massoud
Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Union party.
The remarks are further signal of Kurdistan's
secessionist tendencies that began earlier this year
when Barzani ordered the Kurdish and not the Iraqi
national flag to be flown on all public buildings.
Kurdish parliamentarians have also repeatedly
protested over what they say are delays by the
central government in issuing them with special
Kurdistan passports for foreign travel.
Kakai, appeared to downplay his own remarks whe he
later added that "it is not necessary for Kurdistan
to immediately announce independence but the
authorities need to reiterate their right to do so."
However, he appealed to the United States not to
exclude Kurdish leaders from talks on Iraq's future.
Kakai said Washington should also invite Kurdish
leaders such as Barzani and Iraqi president for
talks.
Shiite parliamentary majority leader Abd al-Aziz al-Hakimi
visited Washington earlier this week while the
United States is expected to invite Iraqi deputy
president and prominent Sunni leader Tariq al-Hashimi
to visit the American capital soon.
In September 2006, the president of Iraq's
autonomous Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, has
ordered officials not to fly the Iraqi national
flag, in a further sign of the country's separatist
tensions.
"According to the Kurdistan Administration of Iraq's
decree number 60, we decide to hoist the flag of
Iraqi Kurdistan officially on all offices and
government institutions in the Kurdistan region from
1.September2006," a statement from Kurdish president
Massud Barzani's office in Erbil in late August
2006.
Iraqi Kurds are declared their national anthem
following the decree of Massoud Barzani, president
of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in
Kurdistan (northern Iraq), which banned the Iraqi
flag in the Kurdish region.
Kurdistan in the north is already a de facto
independent state. It has its own elected
government. It has its own army. It flies its own
flag. The Iraqi army is not allowed to go to
Kurdistan. The Iraqi flag is banned there.
Source: adnki com
Others estimate as many as 40 million Kurds live in
Big Kurdistan (Iraq,Turkey,Syria,Iran,Armenia),
which covers an area as big as France, about half of
all Kurds which estimate to 20 million live in
Turkey, The Kurds in Turkey, who form an estimated
25 percent of the Turkish population.
The Kurdish flag flown in Iraqi Kurdistan but
unofficially flown by Kurds in Armenia. The flag is
banned in Iran, Syria, and Turkey where flying it is
a criminal offence
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 