Iraq may be ruled as federal state
January 6th, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — The Governing Council is close to
agreeing on a federal system for Iraq and will defer until next
year the explosive issue of whether to give greater autonomy to the
northern Kurdish region, two council members said yesterday.
Dividing Iraq into federal states along ethnic and religious
lines is a sensitive matter for Iraqis as well as for others in the
region who fear such separations will lead to the disintegration of
the country. Turkey and Iran also worry about an increasingly
autonomous Kurdistan because of their own Kurdish minorities.
In London, meanwhile, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said British
forces would likely remain in Iraq for years to come. He said he
could not give an “exact timescale” for their
withdrawal but added “it is not going to be months. …
I can’t say whether it is going to be 2006, 2007.”
Three U.S. soldiers were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded
near a U.S. military convoy west of Baghdad, and insurgents shot
and wounded another soldier in an ambush northwest of the capital,
the military said yesterday. All four soldiers were wounded
Sunday.
The violence underscored remarks by British Prime Minister Tony
Blair on Sunday that the U.S.-led coalition must “get on top
of the security situation” in Iraq as the country prepares
for self-rule.
In Baghdad, members of the Iraqi Governing Council were focusing
on how to structure the country in the post-Saddam Hussein era,
including a proposal by the council’s five Kurdish members to
allow Kurdistan to exist as an autonomous region.
Dara Nor al-Din, a Kurdish member, said the council has not gone
beyond agreeing on the principle of federalism in an “interim
law,” which will guide the country until the end of 2005.
Other details will have to be worked out when a constituent
assembly is in place in mid-2005, he said. The assembly will then
write a permanent constitution, which would be put to a national
vote.
“The Kurds wanted to have a federal system based on two
ethnic states. This is going to be difficult,” said Muwaffak
al-Rubaie, a Shiite member of the Governing Council. “We will
agree on the principle of federalism but leave the details for
later.”
“The status in the Kurdish region will stay as it is
now,” Nor al-Din said, referring to the semiautonomous status
that the Kurdish region enjoyed under U.S.-British air protection
after the 1991 Gulf War. He said the status would remain
“until we get to decide the fate of the cities where there is
a Kurdish majority.”
Kurds have a claim over oil-rich Kirkuk and other cities that
were forcibly “Arabized” during the reign of Saddam,
who moved large Arab populations into Kurdish areas to change the
demography of the country. Kirkuk is not in the semiautonomous
region.
Kurds — thousands of whom were killed when Saddam’s
forces gassed Halabja in 1988 — have long wanted a federal
system that allows them some independence.
Nor al-Din said the discussions in the council bogged down when
the members tried to discuss details of the relationship between a
federal Kurdistan and the central government.
In Washington, State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli said
yesterday that whether the Kurdish regions of Iraq remain
semiautonomous as part of a newly sovereign Iraq will be decided by
the Iraqi people.
“This is not a decision for the Bush administration.
We’ve said all along that it’s up to the Iraqi people
to determine their political future,” Ereli said.
“I would say, on the subject of the Kurds, that we have
always supported and will continue to support Iraq’s
political unity and territorial integrity. The Kurds are members of
the governing council and have themselves expressed a commitment to
a unified Iraq.”
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan will call on President
Bush this month, seeking assurances that Kurds in Iraq will be kept
in check in a postwar government.
A senior American diplomat said yesterday that Turkey, a valued
U.S. ally, wanted to ensure there was balance in Iraq so that Kurds
do not have a disproportionate influence leading to Kurdistan
independence.
In private talks with American officials, the Turks have
emphasized they do not believe ethnicity should be a basis for the
way Iraq is governed, the official said to reporters on condition
of anonymity.
He said the Bush administration agreed Iraq should not be
divided after the U.S.-led coalition authority leaves Baghdad.
Dan Senor, the spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional
Authority, said Sunday the details of a Nov. 15 agreement regarding
the transfer of power to Iraqis are still being worked out. Under
that deal, sovereignty is to be handed over to Iraqis by July
1.
The principle of federalism is included in the Nov. 15
agreement, he said. Senor added that Ambassador Paul L. Bremer, the
U.S. chief administrator in Iraq, met the two main Kurdish leaders,
Massoud Barazani and Jalal Talabani, over the weekend to discuss
the issue.
In other developments yesterday, the U.S. military released
three Iraqi employees of the Reuters news agency and an Iraqi
cameraman working for NBC who were detained last week, a military
official said. The U.S. military has not commented on the
possibility that soldiers mistook the journalists for
guerrillas.
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