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12 Iraqi parties sign letter of
understanding seek to block Kurds from taking Kirkuk
14.1.2008
By Juan Cole - The contents of this article reflect
the author's personal opinions
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January
14, 2008
BAGHDAD, -- Several Sunni, Shiite and secular
political parties have come together in a new pact
aimed at challenging the dominant coalition of the
Kurdistan Alliance and the Islamic Supreme Council
of Iraq (ISCI). They appear to aim at blocking the
formation of a Shiite regional confederacy in the
South. They also want to stop oil-rich Kirkuk
Province from going to the Kurdistan Regional
Authority. In March, the 18 month delay in the
implementation of the Shiite region (comprising 8
provinces) will end.
The pan-Arab London daily al-Hayat is more
breathless about the new pact than the Western wire
services. It estimates that 12 parliamentary blocs
have signed on to the memorandum of agreement,
including a Turkmen party. |
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana
Institute |
They said that the
central government should continue to enjoy its
prerogatives with regard to administering national
resources and expressed "severe anxiety" about
attempts to conclude contracts by provinces without
coordinating with the federal government. (This
point is a slam at the Kurdistan Regional Authority,
which is doing oil contracts without reference to
the Oil Ministry in Baghdad).
The agreement also calls for the issue of Kirkuk
Province to be settled by negotiation rather than by
referendum. The Kurdistan Regional Authority wants
to annex Kirkuk, but most of the Turkmen and Arabs
there don't want that to happen.
The problem is that the referendum has the potential
for sparking both a civil war and a regional war
with Turkey.
The parties signing the agreement also want the al-Maliki
government to set a timetable for withdrawal of US
troops.
The signatories include:
The Sadr Movement (30 seats)
The Iraqi List of Iyad Allawi (25 seats)
Dawa Party - Iraqi Organization (15 seats)
National Dialogue Front of Salih Mutlak (11 seats)
National Dialogue Council (1/3 of the Tawafuq party)
The Turkmen Front
The Yezidi Progressive Movement
It is not expected that the signatories will form a
new political bloc to challenge PM Nuri al-Maliki.
(And a good thing, too, since you can't imagine them
agreeing on anything beyond the narrow points they
have assented to for very long).
The Iraqi List of Allawi says that it is in
negotiations with PM Nuri al-Maliki to rejoin his
cabinet, from which they withdrew last fall. How it
is that they are rejoining his government, which has
not, to say the least, worked very hard on these
three points, is not clear.
The head of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the
Iraqi parliament, Humam Hamudi, said that next week
a meeting for national reconciliation would be held
in Beirut, to be attended by 22 Iraqi politicians.
It is not clear if the rumored Cairo reconciliation
meeting will take place this week or not.
LAT says that the US military is pressuring al-Maliki
to employ members of the Awakening Councils,www.ekurd.net
but that it hasn't yet
employed that many of them because the Shiite
government is deeply suspicious of Sunni former
insurgents.
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana
Institute
juancole com
Kirkuk city is a
Kurdish city
and it lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region, the population is a mix of majority
Kurds and minority of Arabs, Christians and Turkmen.
lies 250 km northeast of Baghdad.
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.
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