BG:Kurdish leaders call for Arabs' departure (Confrontation brewing)

[Iceburg]

Kurdish leaders call for Arabs' departure from northern Iraqi city
By Jim Krane, Associated Press, 9/25/2004 13:39

KIRKUK, Iraq (AP) A tense confrontation is building in this refugee-swollen city, with hardline Kurdish politicians demanding the departure of some 200,000 Arabs who settled here during a 30-year government campaign of Arab migration to oil-rich parts of northern Iraq
...
An August report from New York-based Human Rights Watch said the hardline Kurdish position underscores a ''dramatic change in power relations in northern Iraq'' that has left Arab families ''almost completely powerless'' and Kurdish parties creating conditions for ''a major confrontation.''

Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, U.S. commander in the region, said the province's fast-changing demographics are the hottest long-term security threat in northern Iraq.

''We've got to work hard now so it doesn't become a civil war,'' Batiste said in a briefing on the U.S. Army base in Tikrit. If Kirkuk disintegrates into war, ''we'll be right in the middle of it.''

... http://www.boston.com/dailynews/269/world/Kurdish_leaders_call_for_Arabs:.shtml

[Cocoa]

1. I'm so confused...

why is the U.S. military commenting on the internal affairs of the sovereign Iraq, and why is no one from the Allawi government quoted in this story?

Who's in charge here?

[Racenut20]

3. Baghdad displaced the Kurds

Moved Arab citizens into the areas that were traditionally Kurdish. They want the territory back, and the oil fields that go with it. Thats why US didn't use the 60,000 available Kurd forces in the invasion. Soon as the US Military is out of the way, they will take it from whatever government is left in Iraq by Bushie*, or will fight a hell of a war trying.

[leftchick]

2. color me surprised....

Not! Bring the troops home from this clusterfuck!

[Career Prole]

4. It's going to be a race to see which brewing conflict blows up first.

Will it be the Shi'ite/Sunni rift further south?
Or will it be the Iraqi Kurds and Turkey's Kurds against Turkey and the U.S.?
"Turkey Again Warns U.S. Over Northern Iraq City"

This is another of the pitfalls bushco was warned awaited him before he invaded Iraq.
Iraq and Turkey each have largely Kurdish regions, and these regions are contiguous. The Turkish government, ally or no ally, was happy that Saddam controlled Iraq's Kurds and weren't particularly interested in how he went about it. Even before the invasion of Iraq I recall Ankara specifically expressing concerns about a large free population of Kurds bordering the Turkish Kurds, since it makes sense for the Turkish Kurds to long for the same independence as the neighboring Iraqi Kurds. If they should move for independence and unite with the Iraq's Kurds Turkey will have to react. Quite a sticky situation considering they're supposedly a U.S. "ally".

Insects have more foresight than the shrub administration.

[Barrett808]

5. Love the smell of ethnic cleansing in the morning

Although this is kind of a "counter-cleansing."