Iraqi Kurds Demand Referendum

[TexasLawyer]

From Al Jazeera

Thursday 23 December 2004, 8:29 Makka Time, 5:29 GMT

A group of Iraqi Kurds has presented UN officials with a petition signed by 1.7 million Iraqis seeking a referendum on whether northern Iraq should be made an independent Kurdish state.


"The Kurds under international protection have been exercising de facto independence in South Kurdistan for the last 13 years and they do not wish to be controlled by an Arab-dominated Iraq," the group said at the United Nation's New York headquarters on Wednesday.

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http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/69ECAF69-1827-4E61-B299-F0F4EFEF85C6.htm

This is a major hot potato. I am going to go out on a limb and guess that the Kurds will insist upon taking Kirkuk and all surrounding oil fields as part their new territory. This is how the real cataclysm starts.

[knowbody0]

1. i have empathy for the kurds

it will be spun as though they are lunatic radicals, but it is their land.

[daleo]

2. Yes, this would also threaten Turkey and Iran's territorial integrity

They also have significant Kurdish populations that want independence. Perhaps they deserve their own state, but the cost in bloodshed and a potentially wider war would be very high.

[fshrink]

3. The Turks will love that.

[Barrett808]

4. Only a matter of time before the Bush mob sells the Kurds down the river

Again.

[othermeans]

5. Civil War or division of the country into three parts? nt

[fshrink]

6. It should be plain by now

that these PNAC people will do absolutely whatever is humanly possible to set this whole area on fire. It has been, is, their sole purpose. If this happens, if reasonable nations cannot stop them or impede their plan, this thing will eventually reach the proportions of a bona fide genocide and will have to be dealt with accordingly, by the international Court.