06 October 2006
Rice Discusses Iraqi National Unity with Kurdish Leader
Secretary welcomes rapid economic growth in Kurdish region
Washington – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice traveled to Erbil, Iraq, October 6 to meet with Kurdish Regional President Massoud Barzani and discuss the national reconciliation project aimed at uniting Iraq’s various ethnic and religious communities behind a shared political compact for the country’s future.
The secretary sought to ease Kurdish concerns about forging a federal alliance with Iraq’s predominantly Arab southern and central regions. “We now are able to have a situation in which we will have a democratic Iraq, not just a democratic Kurdish region,” she told reporters after her meeting with Barzani.
Iraqi Kurdistan enjoyed relative autonomy from Baghdad and developed solid political institutions under the protection of the U.S. no-fly zone for more than a decade following the Gulf war of 1990-1991.
Rice said ethnic Kurds need no longer fear oppression at the hands of Iraq’s Arab majority. “There are guarantees in the constitution of that unified Iraq. ... And I think that the process that is going on now in Baghdad is one that can, within the framework of a united Iraq, protect and defend the rights of all people,” she said.
Barzani agreed with Rice on the reconciliation process and committed himself to pursuing a unified Iraq. “[W]e will continue in our efforts in our cooperation to implement the process that we have started until we establish a federal, democratic, pluralistic Iraq,” he said. He added the Kurdish people reserve a right to self-determination, but ”the parliament in Kurdistan has adopted, within the framework of a federal democratic Iraq, a federal system.”
Following her trip to the Kurdish region, Rice commented on the area’s rapid growth since her previous visit more than a year earlier.
“[E]ven in that short period of time, the growth there, the construction, the planning of a new airport, is pretty remarkable,” she told reporters on the airplane en route to London. “And I think it shows the potential of this entire country when the security situation is more manageable.”
Rice welcomed the closing of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) offices in Iraqi Kurdistan, saying, “Iraq's territory cannot be used for terrorism against any country.” The PKK is a militant group of Turkish Kurds that has sparked tensions between Ankara and Baghdad by establishing bases of operation in Iraq and carrying out cross-border raids into Turkey.
Transcripts of Rice’s remarks with Massoud Barzani and her briefing en route to London are available on the State Department’s Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
