KurdistanObserver.com

 Kurds support relations with Israel, Massoud Barzani

BAGHDAD -- UPI-June 8, 2006- The president of Iraq's Kurdistan province, Massoud Barzani, says he has no objection to establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

"Establishing relations between the Kurds and Israel is not a crime since many Arab countries have ties with the Jewish state," Barzani said in an interview with the Saudi daily al-Hayat.

He said when the time comes and an Israeli Embassy is opened in Baghdad he will ask that an Israeli consulate be also established in Erbil, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan.

Barzani, who heads the powerful Kurdistan Democratic Party, said the disputed oil center of Kirkuk in northern Iraq is part of Kurdistan and should be returned to the province, as it was cut out from it by the former Baath regime.

He described rampant terrorism in Iraq as "a dangerous illness, which should have been treated radically right from the beginning, while now we fear it has become chronic."