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Kurdistan president in Baghdad over
U.S.-Iraqi security pact
26.7.2008
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July 26, 2008
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region "Iraq", —
Iraq's Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani arrived
in Baghdad to discuss the U.S.-Iraqi long-term
security agreement with Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani, a presidential source said on Saturday.
"Barzani, who arrived in Baghdad on Friday evening,
will meet on Saturday with President Talabani to
discuss the long-term security agreement between
Washington and Baghdad, in addition to his meetings
with a number of government officials," the head of
Barzani's office, Fouad Hussein, told VOI.
"Barzani will discuss a number of pending issues,
including Article 140 pertaining to the situation in
Kirkuk and the provincial council elections law,"
Hussein added.
On Tuesday, the Iraqi parliament, with the approval
of 127 deputies out of 140 who attended the session,
passed the law on provincial council elections,
which includes an article postponing the elections
in the city of Kirkuk sine die. |
Massoud Barzani, the President of the autonomous Regional
Government of Kurdistan 'Iraq' |
Lawmakers from the Kurdistan Coalition (KC), the
second largest bloc with 53 out of a total 275
seats, had withdrawn from the session in protest
against Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani's decision to
have a secret balloting over article 24 of the law,
pertaining to the status of Kirkuk. Balloting over
all the other paragraphs of the law, however, was
open.
On Wednesday, the presidential board, with the
unanimity of President Jalal Talabani and his two
deputies Adel Abdelmahdi and Tareq al-Hashimi,
rejected the law in a rapid reaction one day after
the Iraqi parliament passed it during a session that
raised hue and cry over its constitutionality.
The law drew angry reactions from the Kurds,www.ekurd.net
who considered the way
the law was passed as a "twisting of the
constitution," threatening to use the right of veto,
granted by the Iraqi constitution for the
presidential board, headed by President Talabani, a
Kurd, to reject the law and return it to the
parliament for debate.
The local elections should be held by the end of
this year. All political blocs agreed on a new law
on elections, hoped by the Iraqi government and
other political parties to help end violence in the
country through containing a number of armed groups
into the current political process.
The law on provincial council elections, seen as
supplementary to the law on regions and non-regional
provinces, 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.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, VOI
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