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Jalal Talabani supports decentralizing Iraq and
wants three US permanent bases in Iraq
8.10.2007
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Talabani stressed:
"There is no possibility of having independent
Kurdistan for many reasons."
October
8, 2007
WASHINGTON - The United States could withdraw
more than 100,000 troops out of Iraq by the end of
2008 but should retain three permanent bases, Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani said Sunday.
Interviewed on CNN in Washington, Talabani also
backed a US Senate plan to decentralize Iraq along
ethnic lines, but the ethnic Kurd said he opposed an
independent Kurdistan.
"More than 100,000 can be back by the end of the
next year," he said of the US troop presence in
Iraq, which would leave about 30,000 personnel once
a limited withdrawal planned by US President George
W. Bush is complete.
Iraqi forces are making good progress which could
allow US troops to begin a partial withdrawal from
Iraq earlier than planned, Iraqi National Security
Advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said Friday. |
Iraqi President : Jalal Talabani, a Kurd
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At White House talks Tuesday, Talabani and Bush
discussed sluggish progress towards legislation to
share oil revenues among Iraq's sectarian groups and
rehabilitate former members of Saddam Hussein's
ousted Baath regime.
Talabani told CNN that he wanted the United States
to retain three permanent bases in northern, central
and southern Iraq to train Iraqi forces "and
preventing our neighbors from interfering."
"Of course, Iran included, we don't want Iran to
interfere in our internal affairs. We want good
relations with Iran," he said, while opposing a call
from the US Congress to label Iran's Revolutionary
Guards a "terrorist organization."
Talabani did back a US Senate vote last month to
subdivide Iraq into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni
entities, with a federal government in Baghdad in
charge of border security and oil revenues.
The plan is opposed by the White House and by Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but the Iraqi president
said it merited careful consideration.
A close reading of the Senate's non-binding
resolution shows that "in every article that it is
insisting on the unity of Iraq, of the security of
Iraq, of the prosperity of Iraq, of national
reconciliation and asking our neighbors not to
interfere in the internal affairs of Iraq," Talabani
said.
In any case, Iraq's Kurdistan regional government
last week announced four more oil deals, ignoring
criticism from Maliki's government and Washington
that it is unilaterally selling off the country's
national resources.
But Talabani stressed:
"There is no possibility of having independent
Kurdistan for many reasons."
Regional powers with their own Kurdish minorities
such as Turkey, Iran, and Syria would "send arms to
fight that," he said, and the Kurdish people's best
interest lies in a "democratic, federal regime in
Iraq."
AFP
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