News 2005

Kurds Undecided on Iraq Political Alliance - Leader
February 25, 2005

BAGHDAD (Reuters):

Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani said Friday the Kurds had not decided who to back in the race for Iraq's prime minister, as negotiations over the formation of the government looked set to be protracted.

"No decision has been made," he told Reuters Television when asked if the Kurds were planning to ally with the Islamist Shi'ite politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari or secular Shi'ite Iyad Allawi, who is fighting to keep his job as prime minister.

Iraqi politicians are engaged in intense post-election horse-trading for the top positions in the next government and the heads of ministries, negotiations complicated by delicate ethnic and
sectarian issues.

The Kurdish coalition is in a strong bargaining position after coming second in last month's ballot, with 25 percent of the vote giving it 75 seats in the 275-seat national assembly.

Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), one of the two main parties in the Kurdish coalition, said the Kurds would seek important posts in the new government.

He was diplomatic but firm on the sensitive issue of oil-rich Kirkuk, the most ethnically diverse and hotly contested city in the country.

"In the future we want Kirkuk to be an example of ethnic, religious and national coexistence. But this is after Kirkuk's identity is fixed as (part of) Kurdistan," he said.

Thursday, Nechirvan Barzani, Masoud's nephew and prime minister of the Kurdish regional government, said the Kurds would only agree to a deal on the formation of a new national government if they were given control of disputed areas in the north of the country, including Kirkuk.

Thousands of Iraqi Kurds were pushed out of their homes by Saddam Hussein as part of his "Arabisation" program, when he sought to move Arabs into Kirkuk and the surrounding area to increase his influence and change the region's ethnic makeup.

The Kurds have repeatedly said that now Saddam is gone, they want the areas back.

The issue of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, is a big sticking point. The city's population is split roughly in thirds among Kurds, Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmen.

The Kurds dominated last month's local elections in the city, taking 59 percent of the vote -- partly due to a boycott by Arab and Turkmen parties over a decision to allow Kurdish refugees, many camped on the outskirts of town, to vote.

"Kirkuk's identity is Kurdish as the elections proved," said Masoud Barzani.

The Kurds could give their backing to Iraq's main Shi'ite alliance, which will have a slim majority in the assembly but must cut a deal to secure the two-thirds majority it needs to form a government. The alliance chose Jaafari as its candidate for prime minister.

Or they could support the group led by Allawi, which won 40 seats in the assembly and is determined to keep their leader at the country's helm.