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Kurdistan: Kurds seek name change for Iraq
4.4.2007 |
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April 4, 2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- The
Kurdish Alliance has presented a proposal to the
commission for constitutional amendments asking that
Iraq's name be changed to "The Federal Republic of
Iraq", Saadi al-Barzanji, a Kurdish MP and member of
the constituent assembly, said in an interview.
Speaking to the Kurdish language daily, Nawa,
Barzanji outlined that among the other proposals of
the Alliance are the "definition of Kurds as part of
the Kurdish community and the Arabs as part of the
Arab community."
He said they had also requested that "the
Kurdistan region have its own representatives at the
UN and other international bodies and the right to
sign contracts and accords between Kurdistan and the
other Iraqi provinces and other countries."
Nawa refers that "the Iraqi parliament has examined
the question of creating a federal council in Iraq
and the deputies have also discussed the competence
and role of this council."
The Kurdish Alliance is not the only parliamentary
group to appeal for constitutional changes,
especially regarding article 140 which concerns the
status of the disputed oil rich city of Kirkuk which
the Kurds want to see included in their autonomous
Kurdistan region.
adnki com
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein 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.
Kirkuk city is a Kurdistani city and it lies just
south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region and
it is not under the full control of Kurdistan
Regional Government administration, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The Iraqi Constitution mandates that a referendum on
control of Kirkuk must be held by the end of this
year to decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
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