|
|
|
news
headlines
Kurds aiming for final agreement next week Ecevit says Turkey prepares its defenses Trouble brews between Kurds/Islamic rebels in Iraq KDP and PUK Set to Seal Agreement on Implementing Four-Year-Old Peace Deal Kurds tell of Iraqi war ignored by outside world Iraq's Kurds Fear Results of U.S. Attack on Saddam Former US diplomat visits Iraqi Kurdistan Turkey's Kurdish party sees no ban before polls Al-Qaeda Surrogate Islamic Group in Southern Kurdistan Destroys Sufi Shrines Two Kurdish guerrillas killed in Southern Kurdistan Police Smash Immigrant Smuggling Ring Washington will not lay the groundwork for a "provisional government" Iraqi Kurds Fear Islamic Militant Group Attack by Islamist Radicals in Kurdistan Brings Kurdish Factions Closer Sweden Arrests Kurd in Immigrant "Honor Killing" Turkey set for November polls, EU reforms in doubt
|
Iraq Kurd chief wants US date for post-Saddam poll Reuters Aug 21, 2002 Iraqi Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) wants a U.S. timetable for elections after any ousting of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, a PUK official said on Wednesday. The official said Talabani made his demand during recent meetings of Iraqi opposition groups in Washington with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which focused on shaping a democratic Iraq after Saddam's downfall. U.S. President George W. Bush has vowed to dislodge Saddam, who Washington says is developing weapons of mass destruction. The PUK official said Talabani also urged Washington to establish an election committee "to set the stage within six months for democratic elections in Iraq," which has been under Saddam's authoritarian rule for 23 years. "Jalal Talabani has asked American officials during their meeting to set a timetable for elections after the change of regime in Iraq, to have a committee to supervise the holding of elections within six months and to have a democracy under United Nations supervision," the official told Reuters. Talabani's group is one of two Kurdish factions that wrested control of northern Iraq from Baghdad after the Gulf war, and control of that region is thought to be likely to figure prominently in any plan for an attack on Iraq. Talabani also said in remarks published on Wednesday that the Iraqi government would fall quickly if the United States were to attack. He told the London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat that the government enjoyed no support from the Iraqi people, and that they would not confront U.S. troops in the streets to fend off an attack. "I think the Iraqi regime is totally isolated from the Iraqi people with all its ethnic groups. (The regime's) ability to fend off a big American attack is very limited," Talabani said. "Street battles would not happen...therefore the regime's resistance (to an American attack) would not last long," he was quoted as saying. Talabani, whose party calls for Kurdish self-determination within a unified democratic Iraq, also told the paper the Iraqi opposition could control a post-Saddam Iraq with support from military officers not allied to Saddam. "I think the opposition forces are capable of controlling the situation by cooperating with free officers in the Iraqi army. (Then) the country would enter a period of differences (of opinion) and not bloody struggles for power after a transition period ends." Talabani told CNN earlier this month that he had invited the United States to use airfields in northern Iraq against Saddam, but has since qualified his remarks to stress the role of Iraqis in bringing about "regime change." The PUK, like many Iraqi opposition groups, has representation in offices in countries bordering Iraq as well as in London and the United States.
|
