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Mulla Bakhtiar: We will take over Kirkuk
if Referendum not Held in 2007
26.12.2006
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Sulaimaniyah,
Kurdistan Region (Iraq), December 26, -- We will
take over Kirkuk if the Iraqi government does not
hold a referendum on Kirkuk in 2007, said Mulla
Bakhtiar, a local MP from the Iraqi Kurdistan
Patriotic Party (PUK).
The PUK held a meeting in Kirkuk addressing article
140 of the Iraqi Constitution, which regards the
fate of the oil rich Kurdistani (northern Iraqi)
city of Kirkuk as well as other disputed areas in
Iraq.
They criticized the Iraq Study Group report. The
report recommended the U.S. military mission in Iraq
reduce it’s profile, by shifting to advising,
training and supporting Iraqi forces who would take
the lead in securing their own country.
At the meeting held at a school in Kirkuk,
parliament member Bakhtiar expressed the importance
Kirkuk held for Kurds. He declared that the Kurds
did not accept the Baker plan, and that they would
not give up their fight under any circumstances.
Threatening to annex Kirkuk,
Bakhtiar said at the meeting that if the referendum
was not held in November 2007 "then we will take
over Kirkuk and it will be part of Kurdistan."
Chairman of the Turkmen Democratic Union Party
Seyfin Demirci, who also attended the meeting,
supported the referendum for Kirkuk in 2007.
"Everyone is expressing their opinion here," said
Demirci, continuing, "we believe that the Turkmen
population in Iraq will regain its rights with the
referendum."
The report, which was drafted by a committee headed
by Hamilton-Baker, was heavily criticized, and it
was alleged to be prepared on the basis of a
Sunni-Arabian report drafted by Saudi Arabia and
Turkey.
cihannews com
Kirkuk city lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region and it is not under the full control of
Kurdistan Regional Government administration.
The former Iraqi president forced about 250,000
Kurdish residents to give up their homes to Arabs in
the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city and the region's
oil industry.
A
referendum is to be held in late 2007 to decide
whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be
annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region
in Iraq's north.
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