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| Axis of Evil |
| Barzani in Iran, Talabani to follow... |
| 2002-12-08 |
| Massoud Barzani, the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in northern Iraq, in a meeting with Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karrubi Sunday, discussed the latest developments in Iraq. According to cultural department and public relations of the Majlis (Parliament), Karroubi stressed the importance of unity, dependence and territorial integrity of Iraq. The Iranian speaker called for unity among combatants of Iraq to this effect. That means no Kurdish state. The opinion seems to be unanimous, except maybe for the Kurds... Barzani, heading a political delegation of the KDP party, arrived in Tehran early Sunday to discuss Iraq's future with Iranian officials as well as ranking officials of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). That's the organization I'm hoping isn't an Iraqi Hezbollah... The visit takes place right on the heels of Barzani's recent visit to Kuwait where he met with the head of SCIRI, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim. The two stressed on the ouster of Saddam Hussein and election of a new leader accepted by all Iraqi groups. Political pundits have not ruled out rival Kurdish leader and the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Jalal Talabani's visit to Iran in the forthcoming days. The two leaders are expected to participate at a December 13-15 meeting in London where 300 delegates of the six Iraqi opposition groups will convene to hammer out a power-sharing government to replace Saddam Hussein. They've had years to do that. If they'd done it five years ago, would could have just recognized them as the legit government of Iraq and acted to "assist" them in taking power. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #2 Tripartite, the problem is that "Kurdistan" proper includes a big chunk of Turkey, plus small pieces of Syria, Iran and (??) a small piece of Armenia. The fear is that if you give the Kurds an independent state in northern Iraq, and Kurds in these other places will agitate, maybe agitate violently, to be included. Just mentioning an independent Kurdistan causes the Turks to hyperventilate, and as soon as the Turks pull their faces out of the paper bag they quit helping us. So the Kurds in northern Iraq have to agree to some sort of federated Iraq and renounce all intentions for an indepdent state. If they don't, the US just withdraws the no-fly zone in the north, and bad things start to happen. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2002-12-08 16:02:33 |
| #1 Call me simple, but I can't quite understand why they don't want a Kurdish state so much. Wouldn't be easier just to create one and then whenever the Kurds start agitating say, "Well, you've GOT a state. Don't like it here? Go there." I'm missing something here. |
| Posted by: Tripartite 2002-12-08 14:43:33 |