KurdistanObserver.com
Massoud Barzani, Barham Salih Turned Down
Saudis Offer
DPA April 3, 2007
A Shiite newspaper published in Baghdad reported Tuesday that Kurdistan
President Massoud Barzani had turned down a 2-billion- US dollar offer from the
Saudis in return for giving up demands to have Kurdish oil-rich of Kirkuk as the
capital of Kurdistan.
Al-Bianh al-Jadidah newspaper said that the Saudi offer was made to Barzani and
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih when they visited Saudi Arabia last
month.
The Saudis asked for a 10-year freeze on the Kurdish demand to incorporate
Kirkuk in the north of Iraq into Kurdistan autonomous region.
The newspaper said that an Iraqi government source, who did not want to be
named, said both Barzani and Salih had declined to give in to Saudi pressure to
give up the "Kurds' historical rights to the city."
Kirkuk city just outside the Kurdistan autonomous region and it is not under the
full control of Kurdistan Regional Government administration, its population is
a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs, Turkmen.
The Iraqi Constitution mandates that a
referendum on control of Kirkuk must be held by the end of this year to decide
whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
