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Kurdistan constitution: Setting conditions
for Kurds to remain part of Iraq
25.9.2006 |
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Erbil,
Kurdistan-Iraq, September 24, -- Iraq's Kurdish
parliament on Sunday began debating the region's
permanent constitution, a contentious document
laying claim to other parts of Iraq and setting
conditions for Kurds to remain part of the country.
The 160-article document will be debated and amended
ahead of a December 1 parliamentary vote by the
Kurdish autonomous region's parliament.
According to Article Two, Iraq's Kurdish region
consists of the three current provinces of Dohuk,
Erbil and Sulaimaniyah, but also Kirkuk province and
parts of Diyalah, Nineveh and Wasit provinces.
"The populations of these areas were taken from
Kurdistan and when they are returned to Kurdistan,
they will benefit from the same rights given to them
by the federal constitution," stated the article.
Large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Turkmen and Shiites
live in these areas and have not expressed an
interest in being part of the Kurdish autonomous
region.
The official languages of the region are Arabic and
Kurdish and the population is recognized to include
Turkmens, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds and
Arabs.
The constitution goes on to state that the Kurds
have "chosen a liberal federation with Iraq as long
as it respects the federal constitution, its
federal, democratic and multiparty parliament."
The Kurds reserve the right to review this choice
should the federal constitution be violated,
particularly the democratic or human rights aspects,
or if a federal constitution article allowing a
referendum for the future of Kirkuk is not
respected.
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.
The Kurdish national flag will hang in government
offices side by side with the Iraqi federal flag
(which has yet to be redrawn), stated the draft.
Currently the Kurdistan regional president, Massoud
Barzani, has
banned the display of Iraq's old national flag.
While the constitution bans the existence of
militias, it recognizes the historic Kurdish
guerilla force of peshmergas as "the regular forces
to protect and defend the region".
AFP
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