IRAQ: The Kurdish parliament endorsed a US-brokered deal between the two main Kurdish groups sharing control of northern Iraq at its first session in six years yesterday, amid US threats to overthrow President Saddam Hussein.
The assembly unanimously ratified the agreement signed in Washington in September 1998 by Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) chief Mr Massoud Barzani and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Mr Jalal Talabani, who attended the chamber's first meeting with all its members since bloody clashes between their factions peaked in 1996.
Parliament Speaker Mr Rozh Nuri Shaweess of the KDP, who opened the landmark meeting, read a message from the US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, expressing support for the KDP-PUK reconciliation and solidarity with Iraqi Kurds.
The KDP holds 51 seats in the regional parliament elected in 1992 and the PUK 49, while five seats are reserved for Assyrian Christians.
"Today is no less important than that on which the parliament was elected," Mr Barzani told the assembly before "apologising" to victims of the factional fighting that cost some 3,000 lives.
The KDP chief thanked the US, British and Turkish governments for protecting the Kurdish enclave by enforcing a "no-fly" zone over northern Iraq, which is policed by US and British warplanes based at the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey. The region has been off limits to the Baghdad government since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
"Kurds will not pose a threat to their neighbours' security and stability, and we are prepared to give assurances" toward that end, Mr Barzani said. He was mainly addressing Ankara's concerns that Iraqi Kurds might move toward independence and whet separatist appetites among its own Kurds.
This issue lies at the core of Turkey's opposition to US plans to topple President Saddam, and Turkish Prime Minister Mr Bulent Ecevit reiterated warnings on Thursday that Ankara would counter any Iraqi Kurdish moves toward independence.
"We extend a hand of friendship to neighbouring countries," Mr Barzani said, vowing that the Kurds would "continue to fight terrorism". Mr Talabani, for his part, said Kurdish support for a federal Iraq, far from betraying separatist aspirations, was meant to "safeguard Iraq's unity, which is more than the Iraqi government did".
"Kurdish unity is not directed against anyone," Mr Talabani told the assembly members and guests, who included UN officials and Mrs Danielle Mitterrand, widow of the late French president.
The two parties have agreed on a draft constitution for a future "Iraqi federal republic" which they plan to present to the parliament for approval, in addition to a draft constitution for their enclave.
The PUK made changes in its parliamentary bloc yesterday, replacing five members who died over the past few years and 18 others who stepped down.
The assembly is based in Arbil, the regional capital of the Kurdish enclave which came under KDP control in the 1996 fighting, but it is expected to hold a one-off meeting in the PUK's stronghold of Suleimaniya within days to underscore the inter-Kurdish reconciliation.
Meeting in PUK-controlled Dokan two days before the parliament's revival, Mr Barzani and Mr Talabani gave their seal of approval to a series of understandings designed to normalise ties between their parties under a September 8th accord, designed to complete implementation of the 1998 deal. - (AFP)