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Iraqi Kurdistan president urges
enforcement of Kirkuk article
24.9.2007
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September
24, 2007
Kirkuk, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
-- Iraq's Kurds will not use force to reassert their
rights in the northern Kurdish city of Kirkuk but
want immediate implementation of a constitutional
article to normalize the situation in the city,
their leader said on Sunday.
Kurds took part in elections and the political
process and voted for a permanent Iraqi constitution
in order to to preserve their national and political
rights,' the president of the northern Kurdistan
autonomous Region, Massoud Barzani.
Speaking at the opening of the conference of the
Iraqi Kurdistan students' union in Erbil, Barzani
said the implementation of article 140 of the
constitution has been held up by stalling,
procastrination and foreign threats.
'But we will not accept any delay in its
implementation for even a minute based on a
political decision,' Barzani said.
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Massoud Barzani, the President of the autonomous Regional
Government of Kurdistan 'Iraq' |
However, he hinted at the possibility of delaying
implementation on technical grounds for a brief
period. But only the parliament of the Kurdistan
autonomous region would be empowered to endorse such
a delay.
The future of the northern city of Kirkuk, which is
seen as a microcosm of Iraq with its mix of several
ethnicities, is a bone of contention between Kurds
on the one hand and Sunni Arabs and Turkmen on the
other.
The city has seen a surge in violence since the
implementation of Iraq's new constitution in which
the still-unenforced contentious article 140
outlines a three-step plan to reverse the
Arabization policy of Saddam's regime. This policy
was part of Saddam's campaign to push out the Kurds.
The constitution also provides for a census followed
by a referendum to decide the future of the city to
which the Turkmen and Arab populations are opposed.
Kurds, however, support it as it is likely to pave
the way for the city to be integrated into the
autonomous Kurdistan region.
DPA
* 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 former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
Based on Iraq's Constitution a referendum is to be
held in late 2007 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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