Kurdish flag dispute stirs Iraqi tensions

By Aseel Kami

BAGHDAD | Sun Oct 16, 2011 10:21pm IST

(Reuters) – Kurds protested in an Iraqi city on Sunday against an order to lower Kurdish flags from official buildings in a disagreement fanning tensions between Iraqi Arabs and the country’s Kurdish population.

Iraq’s disputed territories, particularly the area around the northern oil-wealthy city of Kirkuk, are considered potential flashpoints for future conflict when American troops leave as scheduled at the end of this year.

Hundreds of Kurdish demonstrators rallied in Khanaqin city waving Kurdish flags and shouting slogans against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his government’s decision to take down the Kurdish flag from government buildings.

“We are Kurds and the flag is our symbol. On what basis do they want to lower the Kurdistan flag,” said Rawand Raghib, 23, a Kurd participating in the protest.

Khanaqin, 140 km (100 miles) northeast of Baghdad, lies in the Iraqi province of Diyala, but it is also adjacent to the Kurdish Sulaimaniya city, which is part of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

Maliki media advisor, Ali al-Moussawi, said raising the Kurdish flag in disputed cities was unconstitutional and would provoke Iraqi Arabs living in those areas.

“Raising the flag in these areas is a constitutional violation,” he said.

The last 41,000 American soldiers are due to withdraw from Iraq by year end when a security agreement expires. Many Kurdish officials want U.S. troops to stay after December as a guarantee of stability in the disputed areas.

Residents in Khanaqin said the city was tense with an increase in Iraqi army checkpoints. Cars carried Kurdish flags and some Kurds even changed old Kurdish flags for new ones.

No Kurdish flags were seen being taken down from the city’s government offices, residents said.

The speaker of Kurdish parliament, Kamal Kirkuki, said the flag issue was a “sacred issue”.

“The Kurdish political leadership is ready to use all means to preserve the Kurdish flag,” Kirkuki said in a press conference on Saturday in the Kurdistan capital Arbil.

Semi-autonomous since 1991, Kurdistan has enjoyed more security than the rest of Iraq, where the central government is still fighting insurgents and militia more than eight years after the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The Kurds and Iraqi Arabs not only have a long territorial dispute over areas of northern Iraq, but also disagree about oil contracts the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) has signed with international oil firms.

Baghdad and the KRG still disagree over revenue-sharing and a national oil law is fueling more tensions as the central government seeks more control over crude reserves in the OPEC member nation.

(Reporting by Aseel Kami in Baghdad and Shamal Aqrawi in Arbil; Writing by Aseel Kami; Editing by Patrick Markey)

via Kurdish flag dispute stirs Iraqi tensions | Reuters.