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KurdistanObserver.com
PM: Status of Kurdish Peshmerga Remains Unchanged Despite
Crackdown On Militias
April 12, 2008
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the head of the Kurdish
regional authority agreed Saturday to retain the current semiautonomous status
of the Peshmerga the military force responsible for security in Iraqi
Kurdistan despite a government crackdown on militias elsewhere in Iraq.
The guards of the province have the cover of legitimacy inside Kurdistan because
they form organized forces, al-Maliki said after a meeting with Nechirvan
Barzani, prime minister of the
Kurdish government in northern Iraq.
The decision on the Peshmerga comes after al-Maliki demanded that anti-American
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr disband his Mahdi Army or quit politics.
Iraqi forces supported by U.S. and British troops have mounted a series of
attacks on the militants in Baghdad's sprawling Sadr City district and in the
southern port city of Basra, both strongholds of the Mahdi Army.
Hundreds have died in a series of clashes which started with an offensive by
government troops in Basra on March 25.
Al-Maliki and the political parties supporting his government which includes the
Kurds _ insist on the disbanding of all militias groups.
During Saturday's meeting between al-Maliki and Barzani, the two agreed that
Peshmerga forces in Kurdistan will remain organized within two Iraqi army
divisions numbering 25,000-30,000 troops, said a government official who
attended the meeting.
Other Peshmerga forces outside the Kurdish areas will be disbanded, said the
official who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the
media.
The fighters have been in control of Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish areas for
more than a decade. During the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, they assisted
advancing U.S. forces and provided security in other parts of Iraq after the
disbanding of the Saddam Hussein's security forces.
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