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July 10, 2009
Kurds Defy Baghdad, Laying Claim to Land and Oil
By SAM DAGHER
BAGHDAD — With little notice and almost no public debate, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region, a step that has alarmed Iraqi and American officials who fear that the move poses a new threat to the country’s unity.
The new constitution, approved by Kurdistan’s parliament two weeks ago and scheduled for a referendum this year, underscores the level of mistrust and bad faith between the region and the central government in Baghdad. And it raises the question of whether a peaceful resolution of disputes between the two is possible, despite intensive cajoling by the United States.
The proposed constitution enshrines Kurdish claims to territories and the oil and gas beneath them. But these claims are disputed by both the federal government in Baghdad and ethnic groups on the ground, and were supposed to be resolved in talks begun quietly last month between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments, sponsored by the United Nations and backed by the United States. Instead, the Kurdish parliament pushed ahead and passed the constitution, partly as a message that it would resist pressure from the American and Iraqi governments to make concessions.
The disputed areas, in northern Iraq, are already volatile: There have been several tense confrontations between Kurdish and federal security forces, as well as frequent attacks aimed at inflaming sectarian and ethnic passions there.
The Obama administration, which is gradually withdrawing American troops from Iraq, was surprised and troubled by the Kurdish move. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., sent to Iraq on July 2 for three days, criticized it in diplomatic and indirect, though unmistakably strong, language as “not helpful” to the administration’s goal of reconciling Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds, in an interview with ABC News.
Mr. Biden said he wanted to discuss the proposed constitution with the Kurdish leadership in person but could not fly to Kurdistan because of sandstorms. Instead he spoke to Kurdish leaders by telephone on Tuesday, and Christopher R. Hill, the new ambassador in Baghdad, met with them in Kurdistan on Wednesday.
American diplomatic and military officials have said the potential for a confrontation with the Kurds has emerged as a threat as worrisome to Iraq’s fate as the remnants of the insurgency.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is already not on speaking terms with the Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani. Iraqi political leaders have vociferously denounced the constitution as a step toward splintering Iraq.
“This lays the foundation for a separate state — it is not a constitution for a region,” said Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni Arab member of the national Parliament. “It is a declaration of hostile intent and confrontation. Of course it will lead to escalation.”
Kurdish officials defended their efforts to adopt a new constitution that defines the Kurdistan region as comprising their three provinces and also tries to add all of hotly contested and oil-rich Kirkuk Province, as well as other disputed areas in Nineveh and Diyala Provinces. Iraq’s federal Constitution allows the Kurds the right to their own constitution, referring any conflicts to Iraq’s highest court.
Susan Shihab, a member of Kurdistan’s parliament, said she no longer had faith that the rights of Kurds under the federal constitution from 2005 would be respected.
July 10, 2009
Insurgency Remains Tenacious in North Iraq
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
BAGHDAD — Now that American troops have largely pulled back from Iraq’s cities, one violent region remains particularly intractable: Nineveh Province and its turbulent capital, Mosul. Even a major military offensive in the months before the withdrawal did not quell the insurgency or reduce the violence.
On Thursday, a twin suicide attack by bombers wearing explosive vests punctuated a recent string of attacks, a wave of violence that shows little sign of relenting. The blasts killed at least 35 people and wounded dozens more in Tal Afar, a city 40 miles west of Mosul that has been repeatedly scarred by sectarian bloodshed. It occurred the morning after two car bombs killed 12 people and wounded 30 near mosques in Mosul.
Those bombings, along with four others in Baghdad that killed 9 people and wounded 40, amounted to the worst eruption of violence since most American combat forces withdrew from Iraq’s cities and towns ahead of a June 30 deadline that Iraq celebrated as a day of liberation and sovereignty.
Iraqi military and police forces now have more control over security than ever before, and yet they face a tenacious insurgency in places like Nineveh and Baghdad with far less overt American combat support.
“We need more security forces to protect us,” a shopkeeper who would identify himself only as Ali said in the aftermath of an attack in the Sadr City section of Baghdad. “We need someone to take care of us.”
The persistent violence in Mosul and Nineveh underscores the broader turmoil afflicting Iraq. But it also reflects the region’s unique mixture of insurgency and ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs, as well as a proliferation of criminal gangs, that makes the north the most dangerous part of the country.
That was supposed to change last spring, when 4,000 American troops joined more than 25,000 Iraqi security personnel to clean out Mosul’s neighborhoods one by one. Just as significantly, a Sunni Arab political bloc won in January’s provincial elections, giving the Arab citizens of the north proportional representation for the first time and, it was hoped, defusing antigovernment sentiment and support for insurgents. It has not turned out that way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/wo...20claim&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/wo...nacious&st=cse
The new constitution, approved by Kurdistan’s parliament two weeks ago and scheduled for a referendum this year, underscores the level of mistrust and bad faith between the region and the central government in Baghdad. And it raises the question of whether a peaceful resolution of disputes between the two is possible, despite intensive cajoling by the United States.
The proposed constitution enshrines Kurdish claims to territories and the oil and gas beneath them. But these claims are disputed by both the federal government in Baghdad and ethnic groups on the ground, and were supposed to be resolved in talks begun quietly last month between the Iraqi and Kurdish governments, sponsored by the United Nations and backed by the United States. Instead, the Kurdish parliament pushed ahead and passed the constitution, partly as a message that it would resist pressure from the American and Iraqi governments to make concessions.
The disputed areas, in northern Iraq, are already volatile: There have been several tense confrontations between Kurdish and federal security forces, as well as frequent attacks aimed at inflaming sectarian and ethnic passions there.
The Obama administration, which is gradually withdrawing American troops from Iraq, was surprised and troubled by the Kurdish move. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., sent to Iraq on July 2 for three days, criticized it in diplomatic and indirect, though unmistakably strong, language as “not helpful” to the administration’s goal of reconciling Iraq’s Arabs and Kurds, in an interview with ABC News.
Mr. Biden said he wanted to discuss the proposed constitution with the Kurdish leadership in person but could not fly to Kurdistan because of sandstorms. Instead he spoke to Kurdish leaders by telephone on Tuesday, and Christopher R. Hill, the new ambassador in Baghdad, met with them in Kurdistan on Wednesday.
American diplomatic and military officials have said the potential for a confrontation with the Kurds has emerged as a threat as worrisome to Iraq’s fate as the remnants of the insurgency.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is already not on speaking terms with the Kurdish region’s president, Massoud Barzani. Iraqi political leaders have vociferously denounced the constitution as a step toward splintering Iraq.
“This lays the foundation for a separate state — it is not a constitution for a region,” said Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni Arab member of the national Parliament. “It is a declaration of hostile intent and confrontation. Of course it will lead to escalation.”
Kurdish officials defended their efforts to adopt a new constitution that defines the Kurdistan region as comprising their three provinces and also tries to add all of hotly contested and oil-rich Kirkuk Province, as well as other disputed areas in Nineveh and Diyala Provinces. Iraq’s federal Constitution allows the Kurds the right to their own constitution, referring any conflicts to Iraq’s highest court.
Susan Shihab, a member of Kurdistan’s parliament, said she no longer had faith that the rights of Kurds under the federal constitution from 2005 would be respected.
July 10, 2009
On Thursday, a twin suicide attack by bombers wearing explosive vests punctuated a recent string of attacks, a wave of violence that shows little sign of relenting. The blasts killed at least 35 people and wounded dozens more in Tal Afar, a city 40 miles west of Mosul that has been repeatedly scarred by sectarian bloodshed. It occurred the morning after two car bombs killed 12 people and wounded 30 near mosques in Mosul.
Those bombings, along with four others in Baghdad that killed 9 people and wounded 40, amounted to the worst eruption of violence since most American combat forces withdrew from Iraq’s cities and towns ahead of a June 30 deadline that Iraq celebrated as a day of liberation and sovereignty.
Iraqi military and police forces now have more control over security than ever before, and yet they face a tenacious insurgency in places like Nineveh and Baghdad with far less overt American combat support.
“We need more security forces to protect us,” a shopkeeper who would identify himself only as Ali said in the aftermath of an attack in the Sadr City section of Baghdad. “We need someone to take care of us.”
The persistent violence in Mosul and Nineveh underscores the broader turmoil afflicting Iraq. But it also reflects the region’s unique mixture of insurgency and ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs, as well as a proliferation of criminal gangs, that makes the north the most dangerous part of the country.
That was supposed to change last spring, when 4,000 American troops joined more than 25,000 Iraqi security personnel to clean out Mosul’s neighborhoods one by one. Just as significantly, a Sunni Arab political bloc won in January’s provincial elections, giving the Arab citizens of the north proportional representation for the first time and, it was hoped, defusing antigovernment sentiment and support for insurgents. It has not turned out that way.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/wo...20claim&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/wo...nacious&st=cse