Iraqi premier aims to appease Kurds

IRAQI PRIME minister Nuri al-Maliki travelled yesterday to the northern autonomous Kurdish region with the aim of resolving explosive disputes over oil and territory. On his first visit to the region since taking office in 2006, Mr Maliki began talks with regional president Massoud Barzani and national president Jalal Talabani at the summer resort of Dokan, 75km northwest of Suleimaniya, the region’s second largest city.

It is significant that Mr Maliki took the road to Suleimaniya rather than the Kurdish leaders the road to Baghdad. He wants the Kurds to adopt a flexible approach to two major problems souring relations between Irbil, the regional capital, and Baghdad.

However. Mr Barzani has repeatedly declared he will not “compromise” on longstanding Kurdish claims to the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk and its oil fields and to territory in two other provinces bordering on the Kurdish region.

He is in a strong position to stand pat. He won 70 per cent of the vote in last weekend’s presidential election and his Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) did well in the parliamentary poll. Although the ruling bloc, comprising the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, headed by Mr Talabani, lost seats to opposition groups, the bloc won 57 per cent of the vote for the regional assembly.

While Mr Maliki and the Kurdish leaders would like to reach a deal, the prospects are poor. Since 2003 Kurdish leaders have deployed peshmerga militiamen to large swathes of territory in Tamim (Kirkuk), Nineveh, and Diyala provinces and installed local officials to administer seized areas. Mr Maliki wants the fighters and officials to be withdrawn and to bring the disputed areas under Baghdad’s full control. He has dispatched Iraqi security forces to the north to push the Kurds back across the border into their region.

Local Arab and ethnic Turkish inhabitants of the affected provinces vehemently reject Kurdish claims and have the backing of the overwhelming majority of Arab Iraqis, who account for 87 per cent of the population.

Therefore Mr Maliki cannot compromise, even though he seeks Kurdish backing for his return to the premiership following next January’s national parliamentary election.

During a visit to Irbil last week, US defence secretary Robert Gates urged Arabs and Kurds to resolve political differences before US troops leave Iraq at the end of 2011.