June 7, 2002

The Iraqi opposition wants to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein even if it has to enlist the help of the United States, one of the two main Kurdish groups sharing control of northern Iraq said Friday.
"The Iraqi opposition, including the Kurds, wants to overthrow the dictatorship in Baghdad, even if this necessitates outside help, including from the United States," an official from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) told AFP.

"We seek radical change which would bring about a democratic, peaceable regime that recognizes the Iraqi people's rights," Latif Rashid said, stressing that the PUK wants to safeguard "Iraq's unity and territorial integrity."

Rashid, the PUK representative in London, said PUK chief Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the other main group controlling the Kurdish zone in northern Iraq, had discussed ways of implementing a 1998 US-brokered peace deal between their rival factions during a mid-April meeting in Germany.

But he flatly denied press reports that Talabani and Barzani had paid a "secret visit" to Washington last week during which they demanded control of the oil-rich northern Kirkuk region in return for supporting Saddam's overthrow.

The United States has threatened to take military action against Iraq and to try to unseat Saddam unless he allows UN arms inspectors back into the country to check Baghdad's claim that it no longer harbours a programme to build weapons of mass destruction.

According to an Iraqi Shiite opposition figure, both the KDP and PUK were holding talks Friday with State Department officials in Washington.

The Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), the main Shiite Muslim opposition faction, and the National Accord Movement, which groups mainly former Iraqi army officers, were also attending the talks, the opposition figure said.
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