Kurd PM criticizes troop movement in Iraqi north

[David]

AP


IRBIL, Iraq – The prime minister of Iraq's Kurdish region accused the Arab-dominated national government Saturday of trying to use troops to seize control of the disputed city of Kirkuk, escalating tensions between Iraqi Kurds and the Arab leadership in Baghdad.

U.S. officials consider the growing Arab-Kurdish rift as one of the major threats to Iraq's stability as President Barack Obama's administration maps plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

Kurdish officials, close American allies who have jealously guarded their self-governing territory in the north since the U.S. helped set it up in 1991, have in recent months stepped up their criticism of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, accusing him of trying to re-establish a strong centralized state similar to Saddam Hussein's regime.

Tempers flared again about two weeks ago when troops of the Iraqi army's 12th Division moved from their base north of Kirkuk to towns around the city close to where Kurdish fighters loyal to the Kurdish regional government were deployed, according to senior Kurdish official Jabbar Yawar.

Kirkuk is not part of the Kurdish self-governing region and is under the political control of the central government. The Kurds have long demanded that Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, be incorporated into their self-governing region.

Yawar said the Kurds appealed to the U.S. military to stop the movements of the largely Arab troop contingent.

Although the troop movements were halted, Kurdish officials remain suspicious about al-Maliki's intentions.

"We in the (Kurdish government) consider this to be a provocative act," Kurdish regional Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani said of the troop movements in an e-mail sent to The Associated Press.

Barzani said the troops movements were "not to provide security to these areas" but rather to control the city "in a military way — something that cannot and will not be accepted" by the Kurdish authorities.

Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari said there was nothing unusual in the troop movements and "the Iraqi army has the right to be in all the provinces. It is an army for all the Iraqi nation."

Kurdish suspicions were heightened because the moves occurred just before the Jan. 31 elections, when voters in most of the country chose ruling provincial councils.

The vote was indefinitely postponed in the Kirkuk area because of ethnic tensions. Arabs and Turkomen want Kirkuk, which contains up to 13 percent of Iraq's proven oil reserves, to remain under central government control.

Kurdish officials fear that al-Maliki will take additional steps to pressure them because his party was the big winner in the Jan. 31 balloting.

Al-Maliki's allies ran strong in the oil-rich south where voters chose his vision of a strong centralized state over a more decentralized system advocated by Shiite rivals and modeled on the Kurdish self-governing region.

In the weeks before the January balloting, al-Maliki advocated changing the constitution to bolster the power of the central government — which raised alarms among the Kurds even though he did not call for an end to their self-ruled status.

The Kurdish-Arab dispute dates back decades to a campaign by Arab-dominated governments in Baghdad to settle Arabs in the northern oil fields and in territory near the border with Iran.

Under Saddam, thousands of Kurds were forced out of their homes and provincial borders redrawn, depriving the Kurds of land they believed was their own.

The major Kurdish parties joined the coalition government in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam in 2003 and hold several key posts, including the national presidency.

However, with violence receding in much of the country, issues such as the Kurdish territorial claims are now moving toward center-stage.

The Kurds have also clashed with the central government over legislation to regulate the country's giant oil industry. The Kurdish regional government wants the freedom to develop its own oil fields, but Baghdad wants a more centralized system.

The dispute has blocked ratification of the oil law for nearly two years.

The Kurds have pushed for a referendum to decide whether the Kirkuk area should become part of their self-governing region. The Iraqi constitution set a 2007 deadline for the vote but it has been repeatedly delayed.

The Kurdish prime minister has urged Obama to pressure the Iraqi government into scheduling a referendum to create a stable environment for the U.S. to leave.

"As U.S. President Obama calls for a phased and responsible withdrawal from Iraq, we believe it is necessary that a solution be reached," Barzani said. "And we hope this will be a top priority of the Obama administration in order to achieve stability and security in Iraq."