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Iraqi Kurdistan calls Muqtada Al-Sadr to
lean to Constitution’s Article 140 to settle
differences
28.9.2011
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September 28, 2011
ERBIL-Hewlêr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — A spokesman for
north Iraq Kurdistan Region’s government has said on
Tuesday that Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution
“is considered the only guarantee to settle
differences,” in a comment on recent statements by
the Chairman of the Shiite Sadr Trend, Muqtada Al-Sadr,
who warned against the merger of northeast Iraq’s
Khanaquin Township to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan
Region.
“The main trend of the Kurdistan Region’s government
is to implement Article 140 to settle differences
according to the Iraqi Constitution,” pointing out
that “the Kurds in Khanaquin and its surrounding
areas are facing compulsory immigration out of their
home areas, thing that the Kurdistan Region’s
government won’t allow,” Kawa Mahmoud told Aswat
al-Iraq news agency.
Mahmoud said that the Kurdish Peshmerga forces have
been spread in Khanaqin “in order to protect its
Arab, Turkomen and Kurdish inhabitants and to
prevent any demographic change in the area,
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Kurdistan regional government KRG spokesman Kawa
Mahmud (L). Muqtada al-Sadr (R) Chairman of the
Shiite Sadr Trend. Photo: AP |
because such trend does
not cope with Iraq’s new policy,” adding that
“Kurdistan Region’s government is committed to the
Constitution and other forces and parties must be
keen to its implementation.”
The satellite position of the Political Committee of
the Sadrist Trend had quoted Sadr to have said, in
his reply on calls to merge Khanaqin and its
surrounding areas to Kurdistan Region,www.ekurd.netthing
that the Sadrist Trend said it had “warned from and
confirmed that the Federalism would take steps that
won’t please anybody.”
The Kurdistan Region’s government had spread its
Peshmerga forces around the areas surrounding
Khanaqin to achieve “protection” for the inhabitants
of those areas, after the escalation of violence
acts the Kurds say they were targeted against their
inhabitants, mostly belonging to the Kurdish
Community.
Kurdistan Region’s President, Massoud Barzani, has
met on Sept.22
the Mayor of Khanaqin township and other Kurdish
personalities and citizens, in which he said that
“the main target for spreading the Peshmerga forces
in the areas belonging to Khanaqin aims at achieving
protection for the inhabitants of the Township,
belonging to Arab, Kurdish and Turkomen
Communities,” adding that “their security missions
does not aim to protect a certain community against
another.”
Kurdistan’s Peshmerga Ministry had spread its forces
in
Khanaqin city
of Diyala Province, after the escalation of the
Kurdish demands on both popular and official levels
to protect Kurds in those areas, considered among
the areas in-conflict between Kurdistan government
and the Federal government of Baghdad.
Diyala province, a
restive part of Iraq outside the Kurdish autonomous
region of Kurdistan but home to many Kurds. The Diyala district, which includes a string of villages and
some of Iraq's oil reserves, is home to about 175,000 Kurds, most of them
Shiites.
In June 2006, the local council of Khanaqin proposed that the district be
integrated into the autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
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.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to the normalization of the
situation in Kirkuk city and other disputed areas like Khanaqin.
Kurdistan's government says oil-rich Khanaqin should be part of its
semi-autonomous region, which it hopes to expand in a referendum in the future.
In the meantime, Khanaqin and other so-called disputed areas remain targets of
Sunni Arab insurgents opposed to Kurdish expansion and vowing to hold onto land
seized during ex-dictator Saddam Hussein's efforts to "Arabize" the region.
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