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Iraqi Kurdistan mismanaged, report says
2.10.2008
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October 2, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region "Iraq", —
The failure in the leadership of Kurdish President
Massoud Barzani is putting both Iraqi Kurdistan and
its people in danger, an analysis said Wednesday.
"Because of the misrule of Massoud Barzani, the
president of the Kurdistan Regional Government in
Iraq ... may go down as the Yasser Arafat of the
Kurdish people," says a report Wednesday by World
Politics Review.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has a
reputation in Baghdad as a leader with the ability
to generate a unified stance from the Iraqi sects
represented in the political climate in Iraq.
Barzani,www.ekurd.net
the report says, has
largely retreated from the reach of Baghdad in the
Kurdish capital of Erbil, pursuing autonomous
business contracts in the region with foreign
developers while skirting attempts to rein in the
Turkey's separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
Iraqi Kurdish politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq'.
Turkey is home to over 25 million ethnic Kurds, some
of whom openly sympathise with the Kurdish PKK for a
Kurdish homeland in the country's mainly Kurdish
southeast of Turkey.
Turkey refuses to recognize its Kurdish population
as a distinct minority. It has allowed some cultural
rights such as limited broadcasts in the Kurdish
language and private Kurdish language courses with
the prodding of the European Union,www.ekurd.net
but Kurdish politicians
say the measures fall short of their expectations.
Meanwhile, corruption in the Kurdistan Regional
Government is pandemic, leaving many contractors
without revenue to finance their payrolls, while the
region is lagging behind greater Iraq in political
developments.
In some of the disputed regions, such as the north
of Diyala province, the deployment of the Kurdish
Peshmerga force also has threatened the relationship
with the Iraqi army, and presumably Baghdad.
Peshmerga are former Kurdish guerrillas who fought
against the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein and led
a campaign for autonomy for the Iraqi Kurdish
minority in northern parts of the country.
The Diyala 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.
Kurdish forces was located in Diyala to protect the
Kurdish civilians in the district.
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.
"Barzani's true goal is clear: expand the borders of
Iraqi Kurdistan into oil-rich areas before the state
of Iraq and a more capable central government
solidify," the newspaper said.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, pertaining to
the situation in Kirkuk, is expected to put an end
to the controversy over disputed areas, including
Diyala province.
Since 1991, the Kurds of Iraq achieved self-rule in
part of the country. Today's teenagers are the first
generation to grow up under Kurdish rule. Most Kurds
don’t speak Arabic, especially the younger
generation, the 2nd language in Kurdistan after
Kurdish is English language. In the new Iraqi
Constitution, it is referred to as Kurdistan region.
Kurdistan region has all the trappings of an
independent state -- its own constitution,www.ekurd.net
its own parliament, its
own flag, its own army, its own border patrol, its
own national anthem, its own education system, its
own International airports, even its own stamp inked
into the passports of visitors.
Turkey has never, and still does not, recognize the
Kurdistan region government (KRG) and refuses to
meet with its representatives in any official
capacity. That reflects Ankara's fear that any
international respect shown to the autonomous Iraqi
Kurdistan region would only embolden Turkey's own
large Kurdish minority to seek similar home-rule
status.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
UPI | Agencies
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