Iraqi Kurd leader "certain" of US attack after Ramadan

TEHRAN, Oct 31 (AFP)  Iraqi Kurd leader Jalal Talabani said Thursday he was "certain" of a United States attack aimed at ousting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

"I think that an American attack is certain, but it will only take place after Ramadan," Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Jalal Talabani told a small group of reporters in Tehran.

This year the holy Muslim month of dawn to dusk fasting runs from November 6 to December 5.

Although Talabani said he was "against an invasion of Iraq by the American forces", he admitted that Iraq's armed opposition "is incapable of overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime without outside help."

"Foreign countries, the United States and why not Arab or European countries, could help us in getting rid of Saddam Hussein, including with military support," he said in the interview.

Talabani arrived in Tehran on Monday for a series of meetings with other Iraqi opposition officials, including the head of the Shiite Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Ayatollah Mohammad-Baqir Hakim.

Iraqi opposition groups are currently preparing for a meeting of some 200 officials in Brussels scheduled for November 15-22, in which they hope to hammer out a common strategy and "provisonal government" for a post-Saddam Iraq.

Talabani said he had held several rounds of talks here on the future of Iraq with his "friend" Ayatollah Hakim, adding that the Iraqi Kurd and Shiite opposition would seek to reassure Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who have dominated the country since it was founded in 1920.

In the event of an attack on Saddam Hussein, Talabani predicted that "a takeover of power by opposition groups", aided by certain units of the Iraqi army, was a likely scenario.

And he asserted that he believed the Iraqi army would not resort to the use of chemical arms, "because they know they would be judged for war crimes."

Talabani, who will leave for a visit to Syria on Friday, also played down European opposition to a US attack aimed at halting Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction programmes.

"Not all European countries, notably Italy and Spain, are hostile. And you will see that when an American attack starts, they will side with the Americans," he said.

As for Iran, Talabani said he believed the Islamic republic would keep out of an eventual confrontation.

"I told the Americans that Iran will stay neutral. The opposition groups who will take power after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein have friendly relations with Iran," he said.

"The future regime will be democratic and will have friendly relations with all countries. But it will be close to the United States because we need the Americans to reconstruct our country," the former Marxist guerilla said.

The PUK shares control of the northern Iraqi Kurd enclave with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). The enclave has been largely off-limits to Baghdad since 1991 and is protected by a US and British-enforced no-fly zone.

The KDP and PUK recently mended fences and earlier October the Kurdish parliament, meeting in its entirety for the first time since 1996, endorsed a 1998 US-brokered peace deal between them.

Both parties have said they are not seeking independence for their region, and see a future Iraq as a pluralistic, democratic and federal entity.

Talabani said he recognised that any move towards independence would spark Turkish military intervention, and that the Kurds would not be able to count on any support from Iran or Syria.

The PUK leader said that together, both factions could call on 100,000 peshmerga (Kurdish militia) fighters. He said the SCIRI could call on 10-15,000 troops.