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Saudi Arabia offers Kurds 2 billion dollars to give up Kirkuk
A Shiite newspaper published in Baghdad reported Tuesday that Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani had turned down a 2-billion-dollar offer from the Saudis in return for giving up demands to have oil-rich Kirkuk as the capital of Kurdistan.Al-Bianh al-Jadidah newspaper said that the Saudi offer was made to Barzani and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Borham Saleh when they visited Saudi Arabia last month. The Saudis asked for a 10-year freeze on the Kurdish demand to incorporate Kirkuk in the north of Iraq into Kurdistan. The newspaper said that an Iraqi government source, who did not want to be named, said both Barzani and Saleh had declined to give in to Saudi pressure to give up the "Kurds' historical rights to the city." In another development, US-led coalition forces killed six terrorist suspects and captured 13 others Tuesday during operations targeting the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Iraq and those helping them, the US military reported. During an operation south of Fallujah, 70 kilometres west of Baghdad, coalition forces killed six terrorist suspects and detained seven others with alleged links to their support network, the statement added. A separate raid in Qaim, 500 kilometres west of Baghdad and near the Syrian border, resulted in the capture of six suspected terror suspects. Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-04-03 |
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