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Kurdish delegation off to Baghdad on
disputed Khanaqin
31.8.2008
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August
31, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region "Iraq", — A
delegation comprised of Kurdish leaders on Sunday
headed to the Iraqi capital to discuss the Khanaqin
crisis with senior officials from the central
government, a cabinet secretary in the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) said.
"Today, a Kurdish delegation that included the
secretary general of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK), Barham Saleh; a member of the PUK's
political bureau, Fuoad Massoum; members of the
political bureau of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),www.ekurd.net
Hoshyar Zebari and Roz
Nouri Shawis, headed to Baghdad to take up the
Khanaqin crisis with senior Iraqi officials," Qurra
Daghi told VOI.
The delegation will remain in Baghdad for three or
four days, and will tackle other areas of dispute,
the source noted.
The source did not provide no further details.
On Tuesday, thousands of Khanaqin residents took to
the street protesting against the presence of Iraqi
army forces in their district.
Khanaqin, northeast of Baquba in the central
province of Diyala, is a flashpoint district subject
to frequent attacks by insurgents.
The district, which includes a string of villages
and some of Iraq's oil reserves, is home to about
175,000 people, most of them Kurdish Shiites.
During the Arabisation policy of Saddam Hussein in
the 1980s, a large number of Kurdish Shiites were
displaced by force from Khanaqin. They started
returning after the fall of Saddam in 2003.
In June 2006, the local council of Khanaqin proposed
that the district be integrated into the autonomous
Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
Following an agreement between Kurdish authorities
and the central government in Baghdad, Kurdish
Peshmerga forces withdrew from the districts of Qura
taba and Jalawlaa, which are affiliated with
Khanaqin.
The Peshmerga is a term used by the Kurds to refer
to armed Kurdistani forces.
A brigade of about 2,000 Kurdish Peshmerga forces
withdraw in August from some towns in Diyala
province they had been patrolling and moved to a
part of the province bordering the largely
autonomous enclave of Iraqi Kurdistan. Kurdish
forces was located in Diyala to protect the Kurdish
civilians in the district.
"The peshmergas left the place (Khanaqin) on August
18 and were replaced by the Iraqi forces which has
angered the people who demonstrated on August 25
against the presence of the Iraqi army," said Mahmud Sinjawi,www.ekurd.net
an official in Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani's party, the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan..
Copyright, respective author or news agency, VOI |
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