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Kurdistan's president visits Baghdad to
discuss elections law, security agreement
23.7.2008
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July 23, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region "Iraq", —
President of Iraq’s Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani
will visit Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi
officials the security agreement between Baghdad and
Washington and the endorsement of the provincial
councils law, said the head of Iraqi Kurdistan
presidency's office on Wednesday.
“Barzani will visit Baghdad to discuss important
issues,www.ekurd.net
mainly the U.S.-Iraqi
agreement and the endorsement of the provincial
councils law,” Dr. Fouad Hussein told VOI.
He did not set a specified date for the visit.
The Iraqi parliament on Tuesday approved the
provincial councils elections draft law despite the
withdrawal of the Kurdistan Coalition (KC) from
today's session, while the elections in the city of
Kirkuk was postponed until further notice, a
lawmaker from the Arab bloc for National Dialogue
said. |
Massoud Barzani, the President of the autonomous Regional
Government of Kurdistan 'Iraq' |
The Iraqi government
counts on the elections to limit the acts of
violence in the country through the inclusion of a
number of armed groups into the political process.
Kurds call to postpone the local elections in the
city until all unresolved issues are settled; while
Arabs,www.ekurd.net
Kurds and Turkmen
propose a division of the city's administration and
authority into 32 percent for each ethnicity: Kurds,
Arabs and Turkmen, with 4 percent given to the
city's minorities.
The law on provincial council elections, seen as
supplementary to the law on regions and non-regional
provinces, which was approved by the Parliament in
February, has sparked heated controversy among
political blocs.
The law specifies the system of government in Iraq,
and if applied, a federal system may be established
in the country with three separate regions, a call
echoed by some Iraqi political parties.
The law on provincial council elections proposes an
open slate system, which gives voters influence on
the position of the candidates placed on the party
list and allows an individual voting system.
Kirkuk city is historically 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. Kurds
have a strong cultural and emotional attachment to Kirkuk,
which they call "the Kurdish Jerusalem."
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to
the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk city
and other disputed areas.
The article also calls for conducting a census to be
followed by a referendum to let the inhabitants
decide whether they would like Kirkuk to be annexed
to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region or having
it as an independent province.
These stages were supposed to end on December 31,
2007, a deadline that was later extended to six
months to end in July 2008.
The former regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
had 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.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, VOI |
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