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Kurdistan Drops Iraqi flags from all public
buildings
1.9.2006 |
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Erbil,
Kurdistan-Iraq, September 1, -- 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," a
statement from Kurdish president Massud Barzani's
office in Erbil said Friday.
The order said that "regions in Iraq's Kurdistan
which have been hoisting the Baathist flag should
lower it and hoist only the Kurdistan flag".
Iraq's Kurdish minority associates Iraq's red, white
and black banner with the ousted leader Saddam
Hussein's hated Baath party, although it has been
retained as the national flag by the post-Saddam
government in Baghdad.
On May 7, the Kurdish administrations of Erbil and
Sulaimaniyah provinces were united with one
parliament and government for the whole of the
northern Kurdish region, which enjoys broad
self-rule.
Before unification some official buildings in the
Sulaimaniyah region -- which was ruled by Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) -- used to hoist the Iraqi flag
along with the PUK party flag.
Barzani's Erbil administration never hoisted the
Iraqi flag.
Last year Barzani, the current leader of the Kurdish
region, said Iraq's flag "dates back to 1963 since
when many pogroms and mass-killings were committed
in its name. Therefore, it is impossible to hoist
this flag in Kurdistan."
Iraq's Kurdish minority has enjoyed wide autonomy
since Saddam's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War over
Kuwait and strongly supported the 2003 US-led
invasion which unseated him.
Since Saddam's fall, Kurdish politicians have taken
part in national politics and put their historic
demands for independence on hold but, as violence
rages around the country, separatist tensions remain
high.
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Iraq's Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani is
flanked by an Iraqi flag from the 1960's (R) and the
present Kurdistan flag (L) as he speaks during a
conference in Erbil, September 3, 2006. The leader
of Iraq's ethnic Kurds brandished the threat of
secession on Sunday as a row with the Baghdad
government over the flying of the Iraqi national
flag exposed an increasingly bitter rift. After the
Kurdish regional government banned the use of the
Iraqi flag on public buildings
Photo: Reuters |
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In April 2004 the then interim government of Iraq
attempted to resolve the controversy over the flag,
which is emblazoned with three green stars and the
legend "God is greatest", by proposing a new
national banner.
The new blue and white design, however, caused much
controversy -- some felt it was too close to the
Israeli flag -- and it was swiftly abandoned.
Most Arab Iraqis accept the 1963 design as their
national flag, although the design of the Islamic
slogan -- which was reportedly based on Saddam's own
handwriting -- has been changed to a generic
typeface.
Kurdistan's banner is three red, white and green
horizontal bars emblazoned with a golden sun motif.
It flies across the Kurdish region over government
buildings and military bases.
Some Kurdish official bodies fly Iraq's 1958-1963
flag, which was Abdul Karim Qassim's republic after
he overthrew the monarchy in preference to the later
Iraqi symbol and its Baathist associations.
In another development members of the Kurdistan
regional parliament belonging to the Kurdish
Patriotic Union of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani,
have proposed the introduction of a Kurdistan
national anthem.
AFP | Agencies
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