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Iraqi constitution court gets Kirkuk issue
12.1.2008
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January 12 2008
BAGHDAD, -- The future of Iraq's Kurdish
oil-rich Kirkuk will be decided by the
Constitutional Court, despite a new U.N. process, as
the Kurds' dispute with Baghdad continues.
The issue was debated during recent sessions of
Parliament, but disagreements are tense as to how
Kirkuk and other disputed territories in the north
should be resolved.
Meanwhile a delegation of the Kurdistan Regional
Government will restart talks with the national
government in Baghdad regarding controversial KRG
oil deals and, apparently, changing Iraq's official
flag.
"On Thursday morning, members of the Parliament's
Constitutional Amendments Committee discussed with
speaker Mahmoud al-Mashadani changing the Iraqi flag
and Article 140 pertaining to the normalization of
the situation in Kirkuk," Hammam Mahmoud, the
committee's chief,www.ekurd.net
told the VOI news
agency. "The parties agreed to refer the article to
the Constitutional Court to determine its legality."
Saddam Hussein forcibly altered the demographic of
the population in the disputed areas, as well as the
geographic boundaries. A solution was agreed to as
part of the 2005 Constitution.www.ekurd.net
Article 140 and a
related transitional law called for bringing
residents back who were kicked out by Saddam Hussein
and moving out those the dictator moved in.
Then there was to be a referendum, by the end of
2007, whereby eligible voters could decide the
future of the area.
The KRG has been lobbying for voters to be able to
choose to join its area, a region made of three
Kurdish northern provinces.
Iraqi Arabs and Turkomen, however, oppose such a
move and say that the missed referendum deadline
makes Article 140 null and void. The Kurds do not.
"Kirkuk, and other areas which are included in
Article 140, will soon return to the Kurdistan
region," said Aref Tayfour, a Kurd and deputy chief
of Parliament, the Addustour newspaper reports. The
sides agreed late last month to a U.N.- and
U.S.-brokered six-month extension in order to find a
solution.
The semiautonomous Kurdistan region flies the KRG
flag, not the Iraqi flag, though insists it doesn't
represent Kurdish independence.
KRG President Massoud Barzani said Kurds "would
never raise the current flag because it still
carries the three stars symbolizing the Baath Party"
of Saddam Hussein.
The KRG has also passed a regional oil law and
signed exploration and production deals with
international oil companies. The Kurds claim the
right to carry out such moves and say the national
government is too slow in enacting national
legislation.
Baghdad blames the KRG for insisting on too much
control over the oil sector instead of allowing the
central government to steer the oil policy. It has
called KRG's deals illegal.
Jamal Abdullah, a KRG spokesman, told VOI the
delegation from the KRG will be in Baghdad in the
coming weeks to discuss
the oil deal dispute and other issues such as the
region's budget and funding for the KRG security
forces.
UPI
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