Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani yesterday said that the country is “facing a new reality and a new Iraq,” as it considers a leadership change in the Shiite-led government as an immediate step toward curbing a Sunni extremist rampage.
Barzani’s comments came as he met US Secretary of State John Kerry in the Kurdish capital of Erbil. Kerry is pushing the central government to at least adopt new policies that would give more authority to Iraq’s minority Sunnis and Kurds.
Kerry has repeatedly said that it is up to Iraqis, not the US or other nations, to select their leaders. Yet he also has commented on the bitterness and growing impatience among all major sects and ethnic groups with the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Photo: Reuters
Barzani told Kerry that Iraqi Kurds are seeking “a solution for the crisis that we have witnessed.”
Kerry said at the start of a private meeting with Barzani that the Kurdish security forces known as peshmerga — those who confront death — have been “really critical” in helping restrain the advance of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a Sunni insurgent group that has overtaken several key areas in Iraq’s west and north, and is pushing the country toward civil war.
Kerry said Iraqi leaders must “produce the broad-based, inclusive government that all the Iraqis I have talked to are demanding.”
Photo: AFP
The US believes a power-sharing agreement in Baghdad would soothe anger directed at the majority Shiite government that has fueled the insurgency. Iraq’s population is about 60 percent Shiite and their leaders rose to power with US help after the 2003 fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.
Minority Sunnis who enjoyed far more authority and privilege under Saddam than any other sect have long been bitter about the Shiite-led government, while al-Maliki has been accused of targeting Sunni leaders he deems political opponents.
Iraqi Kurds had no love for Saddam and were allowed to carve out a semi-autonomous region to protect themselves from his policies.
Barzani’s support is key to solving the crisis because Kurds represent about 20 percent of Iraq’s population and usually vote as a unified bloc. That has made Kurds kingmakers in Iraq’s political process.
Complicating matters is Barzani’s years-long feud with al-Maliki, which flared most recently over the Kurdish regional government’s decision to export oil through Turkey without giving Baghdad its required share of the profits.
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