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Kurdistan Officials: "We will not deploy
any peshmerga forces in Baghdad"
9.1.2007 |
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January 9, 2007
Iraqi Kurds are advising caution over news that they
will be sending troops to Baghdad to help American
troops and Iraqi forces to reclaim control of
Baghdad's neighborhoods, which are in turmoil due to
sectarian violence.
American press reports said that President George W.
Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kemal al-Maliki
agreed on a plan to end the violence, which
threatens to plunge the country into civil war. The
plan calls for the deployment of five new American
combat units with a force of around 20,000 troops to
be sent to the Baghdad area to end the sectarian
violence instigated by Shiite Arab militia linked to
the Muqtada Sadr group.
The plan also calls for the deployment of three
Iraqi units in the Baghdad area to match the
American deployment. Prime Minister Maliki's
spokesman has said two units will come from the
Kurdish peshmerga forces and one from the Shiite.
The reports also said Democratic congressional
sources opposed the plan and had serious misgivings
about the deployment of Kurdish forces in the
Baghdad area because they were not sure if the Kurds
should show up in the Iraqi capital and were truly
committed to ending sectarian fighting.
The plan will certainly put Bush on a direct
collision course with Congress, which is controlled
by the opposition Democrats. Congressional
Democratic leaders wrote a letter to Bush asking him
to start a phased withdrawal of the American troops
in Iraq my May 2007. Even some Bush administration
officials as well as U.S. military leaders
reportedly feel the plan is doomed to failure.
Kurdish official sources in
the Kurdistan Regional Government told The New
Anatolian the reports should be taken with caution.
"We will not deploy any peshmerga forces in Baghdad.
The peshmerga forces are a special force that will
only be used to protect the Kurdistan region.
However, we may send troops as part of the Iraqi
army to be deployed in Baghdad only if the Iraqi
parliament officially makes such a request and our
Kurdish Regional Parliament approves it," a leading
official in the Kurdish government told the TNA. He
asked not to be named.
He also said the Kurdish government wants the role
of the Kurdish forces to be clearly defined before
they can approve such a mission.
Spokesman of Government Dr Ali Dabbagh denied
what some of mass media said about participation of
three brigades from Peshmerga forces at Baghdad
security plan
Peshmerga Minister at Kurdistan regional government
Sheikh Ja'afar Sheikh Mustafa stressed at press
statement that Kurdish brigades would join. He added
that there's three brigades followed to Iraqi army
in Kurdistan are brigades of Sulaimaniyah, Erbil and
Duhok mentioned that authority of moving it
responsibility of Defense Minister. Meanwhile,
Dabbagh alluded to that details of the plan are very
secret and he refused that Government fixed date of
plan beginning or specified term to it, he said that
it might described as technical to impose security
by rule of law
Kurdish officials have been discussing the
possibility of including Kurdish soldiers in the
Iraqi army ranks. Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani
of the Kurdistan Regional Government discussed the
issue with Maliki in Baghdad last month. The TNA
learnt that the issue came up when the share of the
Kurdistan region in the Iraqi fiscal year budget was
discussed. The Kurds are supposed to get 17 percent
of the Iraqi budget. However, they have complained
that the central government in Baghdad is cutting
defense and security expenses of Iraq from the
general budget and then handing out 17 percent to
the Kurds. The Kurds say they are undertaking the
mission to defend and secure northern Iraq so they
too should receive a share of the defense and
security budget.
According to information received by TNA Maliki has
said the Baghdad government would be prepared to
give more share of the budget to the Kurds if they
participated in the Iraqi army.
It is not certain whether Maliki took up the issue
with the Kurdish leadership but sources say Kurds
have been promised massive funds to participate in
the force in Baghdad and will eventually agree to
send their troops as part of the Iraqi army to quell
sectarian strife in Baghdad.
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