Talabani: Kurds Will Not Support New UN Resolution

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Talabani, who leads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), expressed the growing assertiveness of Iraq's former opposition - which dominates the Governing Council - in the run-up to the transfer of sovereignty on June 30 and elections in January.

Mr Talabani said the Kurds - who make up 20-25 per cent of Iraq's 25m population - were disappointed that neither the new president nor prime minister would be a Kurd.

But he praised Iyad Allawi, the nominee for prime minister, as "an old friend of ours, one of the leaders of the Iraqi opposition for a long time".

Mr Talabani defended another longstanding opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi, condemning the recent police raid on his Baghdad house as "a violation of human rights" and dismissing the allegation that Mr Chalabi was an Iranian agent. Mr Talabani called Mr Chalabi an "Iraqi patriot" who had worked for "human rights, democracy, and Kurdish federation".

Mr Talabani said the year's delay in forming an Iraqi government had led to slow political progress in Baghdad.

He endorsed the new US approach to security in both Falluja and Najaf, which has involved council members as mediators.

Mr Talabani said he would welcome Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, into the political process but stressed that any arrest warrant would still need to be served after June 30.

"If he [Mr Sadr] had worked as a political party he could have gained support," he said. "But when he started military activity, gradually he lost support. People in Najaf and Kerbala have asked him to move his forces out."

Mr Talabani acknowledged that mistrust between Arabs and Kurds had grown in the past year. He said this was due partly to Arab satellite television's "propaganda against Kurdish people" and denied reports that Kurdish forces fought alongside the US in clashes in Falluja.

He said mistrust between Kurds and Arabs also reflected diverging views about the US presence.

"The Kurds call it liberation," he said. "In reality, we were liberated from the worst kind of dictatorship, from the Iraqi army and the moukhabarat [security police]. We were liberated from ethnic cleansing and discrimination."

Mr Talabani said the Kurds, who placed their 30,000 peshmerga forces under US command in last year's war to remove Saddam, remained close allies of Washington.

"Being friends doesn't mean being 'yes men'," he said. "Sometimes you have different views, but these remain within the framework of friendship."

http://www.kurdistanobserver.com/