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Talabani defends Kurdish peshmerga militia
23.4.2006
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BAGHDAD, Iraq
April 23 (AFP) - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has
defended the Kurdish peshmerga militia, insisting
they were a "regulated force".
"Peshmerga is not a militia. It is a regulated
force," Talabani, a Kurd, said at a joint news
conference with US ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay
Khalilzad, in Erbil and telecast live on Al-Iraqiya
state-television.
The United States has consistently called for the
dismantling of Shiite-led militias in Iraq, blamed
for a large number of killings in ongoing sectarian
violence across the country.
A ban on militias imposed under the US-led
occupation authority in 2003 has never applied to
the three northern provinces of Kurdistan --
Sulaimaniyah, Dohuk and Erbil -- which Kurdish
rebels ruled in defiance of Saddam Hussein's regime
before the 2003 invasion. |
Iraqi
President : Jalal Talabani, a Kurd
Photo: Military |
The peshmerga continue to oversee security there and
Kurdish leaders, including Talabani, have resisted
all calls for them to be disarmed, insisting they be
retained as an independent unit within the Iraqi
armed forces.
"We regard that unauthorised military formation as
infrastructure of civil war," Khalilzad told
reporters Sunday in reference to all Iraqi militia.
He said he was encouraged by Iraq's new prime
minister designate Jawad al-Maliki's intentions to
rein in the militias.
"I have been encouraged by consultations with the
prime minister designate" and he has "assured he
will focus on this issue," Khalilzad said, adding
that all military formations must "be in hands of
authorised Iraqi government forces."
On Saturday Maliki vowed to rein in the militias
saying, "arms must be in the hands of the
government. There is a law to integrate militias
into the security forces."
AFP
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