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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
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Kurdish leaders in Iraq sign accord to revive parliament ARBIL, (Southern Kurdistan), Sept 8 (AFP) The heads of the two main Kurdish factions in northern Iraq signed an accord Sunday to settle their longstanding rivalry, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistanannounced. KDP leader Massoud Barzani and PUK chief Jalal Talabani told reporters they reached an agreement to resolve any lingering disputes from a 1998 US-brokered peace deal which sought to end almost five years of armed conflict between the factions. The new accord would reactivate the Kurdish parliament, which is split evenly between the KDP and PUK, that was elected in 1992 but stopped meeting due to the mid-1990s Kurdish infighting. Under the deal, which was announced after two days of talks in the mountain town of Salahadin where the KDP has its headquarters, the leaders said they agreed to fix a date for "the reactivation of the unified parliament." Parliament is to meet at its seat in Arbil, the main town in Kurdish-held northern Iraq, on October 4, a KDP spokesman in London, Dilshad Miran, told AFP by telephone. The two leaders also agreed on "a mechanism for the functioning of parliament," according to a joint statement which made no mention of a date for new elections. The KDP and PUK, which share control of northern Iraq, are to set up four high-level joint committees "to settle within a month all the others outstanding points," it said. The Barzani-Talibani meeting was their first for almost two years in Iraqi Kurdistan, a region outside Baghdad's control since 1991. Their US-brokered peace process had been stalled since September 1998 when they signed an accord in Washington aimed at halting a conflict that cost more than 3,000 lives, fueled by a power struggle and dispute over tax revenues. Their reconciliation came as Washington has been stepping up threats to embark on military action to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The United States
is moving forward with its plans but the breakaway Iraqi Kurds will not seek
independence if the Baghdad regime is ousted, Talabani said on his return from
talks in Washington last month.
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