From: L' Ermit (lhermit@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Feb 08 2002 - 23:46:07 MST
Given the recent assertions made here, I thought this might be of interest.
Regards
Hermit
Source:
[url]http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/02/08/iraq.kurds.reut/index.html[/url]
accessed 2002-02-09
Iraq Kurds unconvinced U.S. has Saddam alternative
February 8, 2002 Posted: 6:44 PM EST (2344 GMT)
ISTANBUL, Turkey (Reuters) -- Kurds of northern Iraq need to see a better
alternative to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before they give their support
to any U.S.-led attempt to overthrow him, two leaders of the region said on
Friday.
"For us the important thing is who is the alternative that will come in
place of Saddam. First of all we have to know who the alternative is, if
there is one," Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party
(KDP), told NTV in an interview.
"And of course there is no guarantee that the alternative will be better
than Saddam," he added.
Northern Iraq has been outside Baghdad's direct control and protected by
U.S. and British air patrols since after the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
Washington has sponsored peace talks in the region to end fighting between
Barzani's group and the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal
Talabani.
Washington's hope is to forge the mountainous Kurdish north into a united
bulwark against the Iraqi government.
The two Kurdish leaders, whose "peshmerga" fighters once battled for control
of the region, have been at peace for years now and speak from the same page
on the possibility of a U.S. attempt to remove Saddam from power.
"We do not know what will happen...we will not enter adventures whose end is
unclear. In the same way we cannot support any project for change in which
we do not see the alternative," Talabani told NTV.
"We prefer the current situation to a change we could not accept. At least
now Saddam is under international pressure and contained, alone and
powerless and we are under international protection."
Both acknowledged that much was out of their control as speculation
increases that Washington may try to extend its "war on terrorism" from
Afghanistan to Iraq.
"If the US strikes Iraq there is nothing we can do," said Barzani. "But we
will not be ordered by America or any others. We will not be a bargaining
chip or tool of pressure to be used against Iraq."
Both leaders stress that they see the future of their region within a united
Iraq.
That goes some way to allay fears of U.S. ally Turkey that turmoil in Iraq
could spark an independent Kurdish state that would then spread violent
nationalist sentiment among Turkey's own Kurdish citizens.
Talabani said an independent Iraqi uprising against Saddam depended on an
unlikely alliance among the country's different ethnic, political and
religious groups.
"I have to confess that achieving that balance is very difficult. That's why
I see the government in Baghdad as lasting and change as not close without
outside intervention. In other words change should not be expected without
American intervention or invasion from outside," he said.
He suggested that any U.S. action might be further away than many now
expect. Turkish financial markets slid on Friday partly on worries that an
attack was likely.
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney visits Turkey and other regional countries
next month to garner support for U.S. policies.
Turkey hosts U.S. and British jets that patrol northern Iraq and keeps its
own military presence in the region, to Baghdad's fury, to attack northern
Iraqi bases of its own Kurdish rebels.
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