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news
headlines
Bomb
in Iraqi Kurdistan kills boy, 4, wounds two others: police
Bahceli: Barzani's Statement Is Unacceptable How Kurdistan's first suicide bomber changed his mind Interrogations link Al Qaeda to Iraq Two hundred Iraqi Kurdish immigrants land in southern Italy Turkey, Iraqi Kurdish Tensions High Jalal Talabani Interview with Asharq Al-Awsat Iraqi Kurd Fighters Seen More Organized Iranian troops deployed on Iraqi border: Kurds Saddam's son says Iran not al-Qaeda behind Kurdistan Islamist group KDP Slams Berlin Embassy Seizure as "Terrorism" Barham Salih: The Radical group Ansar al-Islam Plans Attacks Talabani Wants US Date for Post-Saddam Poll U.S. Monitors Kurdish Extremists raq orders banks to be opened in Kurdistan Saddam will not stop me being a Kurd
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Kurds agree on draft
constitution for Arab-Kurdish federation in Iraq
ARBIL, (Southern Kurdistan) Sept 24 (AFP) The two main Kurdish factions sharing control of northern Iraq have drawn up draft constitutions for a future "Iraqi federal republic" and for their autonomous enclave, officials said Tuesday. During meetings on September 18 and 23, a joint committee introduced amendments to a proposed constitution for an Arab-Kurdish federation drafted earlier this year by Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), sources in the committee told AFP. The amended version, approved by the committee representing the KDP and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), envisages a future federation made up of an Arab region and a Kurdish region. The rights of "other ethnic groups and minorities" in Iraq would also be upheld and enshrined in the country's future constitution, the sources said. The two parties will seek the approval of the Kurdish parliament for the proposed constitution for a "federal Iraq" when the revived assembly convenes in KDP-controlled Arbil on October 4. The document will also be put to a conference of the major Iraqi opposition groups expected to be held in a European capital in October, the sources said, adding they have also drawn up a constitution for Iraqi Kurdistan itself. Iraqi Kurds have over the past decade tried to persuade other groups opposed to President Saddam Hussein to support the concept of a "federal" Iraq granting them a measure of self-rule in their enclave. The Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq has effectively been autonomous since the end of the 1991 Gulf War, when it came under Western protection and became out of bounds for the central government in Baghdad. The constitution panel is one of four joint committees set up by the KDP and PUK under an agreement signed by Barzani and Talabani on September 8 which is designed to complete implementation of a US-brokered 1998 peace deal between the two factions. The Kurdish parliament has not convened with all its members since 1996 when fighting between the two sides reached its peak. The KDP holds 51 seats in the assembly and the PUK 49, while five seats are reserved for Christian Assyrians. Under the September 8 accord, the speakership of the assembly will rotate between the KDP and PUK every three months. The newspaper Hawlati, published in PUK-held Suleimaniya, said on Monday that Talabani's party was poised to name one of its top officials, Kamal Fuad, as deputy speaker. The current speaker is the KDP's Rozh Nuri Shawees. The two groups are
closing ranks amid expectations that the administration of US President George
W. Bush will take military action aimed at ousting Saddam despite Baghdad's
decision last week to readmit UN arms inspectors.
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