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Iraqi political factions jointly pressure
Kurds
14.1.2008
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Onetime enemies sign a statement urging a political
solution to the status of Kirkuk, and to regional
oil contracts.
January 14 2008
BAGHDAD, -- Several Shiite and Sunni
political factions united Sunday to pressure the
Kurds over control of oil and the future of the
Iraqi city of Kirkuk, which Kurdistan wishes to
annex to its self-ruled region in the north.
The budding front, which includes onetime enemies
such as Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr and former
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's secular faction,
believes Iraq should have a strong central
government.
In contrast, the Kurds and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi
Council, a major Shiite party, have championed a
federal system that would give a limited role to the
national government and greater powers to the
regions.
Officials from the factions that signed Sunday's
statement said they wanted to find a political
solution to the status of the oil -rich city of
Kirkuk, which Kurds wish to annex by referendum. The
Iraqi Constitution had called for a referendum to be
held by the end of 2007,www.ekurd.net
but that deadline passed
and the factions now question whether it is still
required.
The groups also protested any contracts signed by
provinces or regions with foreign companies to
develop oil fields. The regional government in Iraqi
Kurdistan has signed such contracts in the last
year, ignoring protests from Baghdad.
The factions indicated that the communique did not
represent the formation of a new political bloc but
did commit them to promoting a strong role for
Iraq's national government.
Usama Najafi, a lawmaker with Allawi's party, said
at least 120 lawmakers in the 275-member parliament
had endorsed the statement.
The communique was signed by representatives of
nearly a dozen blocs, including the Turkmen,www.ekurd.net
Yazidi and Christian
minorities. The Shiite Islamic Dawa Party and
supporters of former Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari
also signed the statement, in a move that could
create greater stress on parliament's 85-seat
leading Shiite coalition, which has already seen two
parties defect.
The communique also revealed divisions in the
44-seat Iraqi Accordance Front, the main Sunni bloc,
between parties that support and oppose Kurdistan's
regional ambitions.
"We are thinking that Kurdish demands have grown
larger and larger gradually... Some of those demands
are impossible to achieve, and this is a
clarification for the Kurds that their demands are
too large and irrational. They have to recognize
their true size in the political process," said
Sheik Walid Kraimawi, a member of the Sadr
movement's political committee.
In a twist, the communique brings together both
Allawi's faction and the Sadr camp in demanding a
timeline for the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Iraq.
When he was prime minister in 2004, Allawi gave the
green light for U.S. troops to fight Sadr's Mahdi
Army militia.
"A timetable must be defined for the foreign forces
to withdraw so that full independence and
sovereignty would be achieved," said Najafi, of
Allawi's group. "Of course not tomorrow; we are
saying a timetable that depends on how the Iraqi
forces are being prepared."
Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said the Kurds were
not surprised at the statement and have considered
such groups hostile to their goals.
But he cautioned that it was hard to see how their
positions would translate into a cohesive bloc.
"It's not a coalition or front," Othman said. "It's
just a communique."
latimes com
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