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President Barzani: Again, we will not accept any
foreign interference on Kirkuk issue
10.4.2007 |
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April 10, 2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq), April 10, --
Iraq's Kurdistan’s president, Massoud Barzani, said
today Tuesday, Iraqi Kurds would not accept any
foreign interference on the Kirkuk issue as it
considers it an internal affair that should be
resolved internally.
The state-run satellite channel al-Iraqiya
quoted Barzani, during his speech before the opening
session of the Democratic Forces conference in Erbil
on Tuesday, as saying that the "Kirkuk issue is an
internal affair and can be resolved by Iraqis
according to article 140 of the Iraqi constitution.".
"We do not say that Kirkuk will be for Kurds only,
but it is an Iraqi city carrying Kurdish identity
and all historical facts confirm this," the
president said during the conference. |
Massoud Barzani, the President of the autonomous Regional
Government of Kurdistan 'Iraq' |
He urged the Iraqi government to apply article 140,
affirming that "we will defend our rights and not
submit to anyone except God."
The article stipulates that the normalization of the
situation in Kirkuk can only be achieved by the
return of Arabs, who settled in the city during the
former Iraqi regime, to their hometowns after
offering them compensation, and the return of
expelled Kurds.
A census will follow the referendum, during which
the people of Kirkuk will decide whether to stay a
part of the Iraqi federal government or to join
Iraq's Kurdistan region.
Kurds insist that the article be applied because
there are former Baathists in most of the Iraqi
institutions in Kirkuk, despite the toppling of
former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's
regime.Regarding the Iraqi flag, al-Barzani said
that Iraq's Kurdistan will fly the Republic of
Iraq's flag from after the 1958 revolution, saying
"we will not fly Baathists' flag."
He called on the Iraqi cabinet and the parliament to
explain the meaning of the three stars in the flag,
underlining that they represents the Baath's three
goals: unity, freedom and socialism.
VOI
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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