The George W. Bush administration, increasingly fearful of Iraq's breaking up along ethnic lines after the American occupation ends, is urging Kurdish leaders to compromise in their demand for a fully autonomous state in the north, administration officials said Wednesday.
The officials said that Paul Bremer, the American administrator in Iraq, met Friday with top Kurdish leaders to convey the concerns of senior members of the administration that a Kurdish state with all of its current powers, and some authority that it does not have now, posed a threat to the future unity of Iraq.
American officials said the Kurdish reaction was not conveyed back to Washington by Bremer.
PHOTO: AFP
But a Kurdish representative said the Kurdish leaders were adamant in rejecting Bremer's request. Kurds, the spokesman said, will continue to demand nothing less than the autonomy that the Kurdish area has had since 1991, when the US decided to protect it as a breakaway part of Iraq.
"It was totally rejected," said the Kurdish representative, asking not to be identified. "Bremer's proposal didn't even meet the minimal things that the Kurds have been fighting for all these years."
The official said that Bremer held a second meeting with Kurdish leaders on Wednesday and backed off considerably on his own demand for a less than autonomous Kurdish state. "It was a real turnaround," said the Kurdish official.
The varying comments about American negotiations reflected what administration officials said was a fast-moving and fluid situation among aides to Bush and between Bremer and Iraqi leaders.
Rather suddenly, and perhaps unexpectedly, administration officials say that the issue of Kurdish autonomy has risen to the top of the list of difficulties that the US is struggling to resolve while it returns Iraq to self-rule under a tight deadline. The target for Iraq regaining sovereignty is June 30.
Last week, administration officials said there was a growing recognition in the administration that some form of Kurdish autonomy was inevitable, if only because it was impractical to devise a new law to change the status quo in the next two months, the deadline for writing a new interim constitution for Iraq.
That view, reported in an article in The New York Times on Monday, has been modified, with at least some in the administration saying that the Kurds needed to be advised that their demands for the greatest possible autonomy had gone much too far.
Kurds wish to retain not only their own armed forces, the pesh merga, but also control over taxing power and oil revenues in Kirkuk and Khanakin, two oil-producing centers that the American occupation does not view as part of the traditional Kurdish region.
In a recent memo to top administration officials, Bremer advised that fighting the Kurds over their demand for the greatest possible autonomy might infuriate them and upset political stability in the north.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was