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Kurdistan speaker raises new Iraqi flag in
parliament
10.2.2008
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February 10, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan Region 'Iraq',--
Kurdistan’s parliamentary speaker raised the new
Iraqi flag in the parliament in the presence of
Iraq's Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani, Kurdish
premier and several regional officials.
Inside the parliament's lobby, where a picture of
leader Mulla Mustafa is centered to the right of the
Kurdish flag, two guards of honor lowered two old
Iraqi flags belonging to the era of Abdul Kareem al-Qasim,
while all those in attendance headed to the
building's forecourt.
With the traditional military music in the
background, Speaker Adnan Mufti stepped forward
between the guards and raised the new Iraqi flag to
the left of the region's flag, and the national
anthem followed. |
An honour guard march under Iraq's new flag (centre)
after it was raised for the first time in Erbil, the
capital of the autonomous region of Kurdistan,
February 10, 2008 |
Earlier today, al-Mufti said in a special
parliamentary session that was attended by Kurdish
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani that the new flag
will fly in the region beside its flag.
Last month the Iraqi parliament voted with a
majority of 110 out of 165 votes on a draft to
modify the national flag by removing the three stars
from the old flag and keeping the phrase Allahu
Akbar (God is Great).
Iraq's flag has three colors - red, white, and black
- and in the central white were three stars and the
words Allahu Akbar, which were added by the former
regime of President Saddam Hussein months before the
1991 Gulf War.
Iraqi Kurdistan region President Massoud Barzani had
urged the central government in Baghdad to speed up
changing the Iraqi flag ahead of the Arab
parliamentarians' conference to be hosted by Erbil
in February 2008.
Barzani then affirmed that the Kurds "would never
raise the current flag because it still carries the
three stars symbolizing the (former) Baath Party."
On Tuesday,www.ekurd.net
Iraq's Prime Minister
Nouri al-Maliki raised the country's new flag over
the cabinet building in the Iraqi capital in a
ceremony attended by a number of government
officials and parliamentarians.
Abdul Qarim al-Qasim was a nationalist Iraqi
military brigadier who seized power in a 1958 coup
d'état, wherein the Iraqi monarchy was eliminated.
He ruled the country as prime minister until his
downfall and death in 1963.
VOI
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