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August 30, 2008
News
PM al-Maliki will punish Peshmerga deployed outside Kurdish enclave
Voices of Iraq
A lawmaker from the main Shiite bloc on Friday said Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has threatened the deployment of Kurdish forces outside the Kurdish enclave would make them face legal actions.
Iraq’s Kurdistan is a semi-autonomous region governed by two main Kurdish parties and its terroritoes were determined by U.S-led coalition in 1991. The International coalition banned the former regime of Saddam Hussein not to violate the imaginary blue line, which applied to latitude 36 passing through northern Iraq.
“PM Al-Maliki told Kurds any Peshmerga fighter deployed outside the blue line would face legal actions,”MP Humam Hamoudi from the United Iraqi Coalition(UIC) bloc told Voices of Iraq.
The so-called Peshmerga troops made up of Kurdish former gunmen have never been integrated into the Iraqi army and continue to operate under the command of the autonomous regional government that holds sway in Iraq's three far northern provinces.
But with US backing, the disciplined and battle hardened troops have deployed elsewhere in Iraq to support the army in its efforts to rein armed groups, particularly those loyal to al-Qaeda.
Since July 29, mainstream Iraqi security forces have been engaged in a major offensive dubbed as Bashaer al-Kheer(Promise of Good) against Al-Qaeda in the province involving 50,000 soldiers and police.
Tensions between the central government and Kurdistan’s region has run high following the deployment of mainstream Iraqi forces in disputed town of Khanqin, north Baquba.
The deployment in northern districts of Diala province is a sensitive one as they are Kurdish-inhabited and Kurdish leaders have long sought to incorporate them in the autonomous region which they directly abut.
Commanders have long regarded Diala as Iraq's most dangerous province. Its volatile ethnic mix of Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and Shiite and Sunni Kurds has proved fertile ground for gunmen loyal to Al-Qaeda who have made it one of their main strongholds.
Diala province is just one of a number of areas where longstanding Kurdish claims have drawn opposition from their non-Kurdish neighbours.
Meanwhile the Shiite MP, the chief of the parliament’s foreign relations committee, deemed “Kurdistan share which forked out 17% of Iraq’s fiscal budget as more than the normal and must be 14%”.
Hamoudi highlighted “the central government is eager to ensure equal share for all Iraqi provinces”.
For his side, Fuad Hussein, the chief of Kurdistan’ presidency office, said “the Kurdish leader have not got such a threat”, noting “the ties between the central government and Kurdistan’s authorities as based on constructive dialogue”.
The Kurdish official emphasized Kurdistan’s share of the fiscal budget was“endorsed by the parliament in constitutional ways and agreed upon by Iraq people representatives”.
The Iraqi parliament has allocated 17% of the fiscal budget for 2008 year after longtime wrangling over how to calculate the share”.
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