Kurd renews independence push

Iraq region’s lawmakers urged to ‘hurry up’ on referendum

Mourners carry the flag-draped coffin of Iraqi soldier Zidane Ahmed, 29, during his funeral procession Thursday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Zidane’s body was found blindfolded and shot several times in Mosul, his family said.
Mourners carry the flag-draped coffin of Iraqi soldier Zidane Ahmed, 29, during his funeral procession Thursday in the Shiite holy city of Najaf. Zidane’s body was found blindfolded and shot several times in Mosul, his family said.

BAGHDAD -- With large parts of Iraq in militant hands, the country's top Kurdish leader called on regional lawmakers Thursday to lay the groundwork for a referendum on independence.

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The recent blitz by Sunni militants across much of northern and western Iraq has given the country's 5 million Kurds the chance to seize disputed territory and move closer to a decades-old dream of their own state.

A Western-established no-fly zone in 1991 helped the Kurds set up their enclave, which has emerged over the years as a beacon of stability and prosperity while much of the rest of the country has been mired in violence and political turmoil. The three-province territory was formally recognized as an autonomous region within Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

Speaking to the regional legislature Thursday, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Massoud Barzani, told lawmakers to set up an electoral commission and to "hurry up" and prepare for "a referendum on self-determination."

"We will be in a better position, and we will have better [political] weapons in our hands. But how we will do this?" he said. "What kind of steps will there be? For this, you have to study the issue and take steps in this direction. It is time to decide our self-determination and not wait for other people to decide for us."

Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has been under pressure to step aside to give the minority Sunnis and Kurds a greater say in government, rejected the Kurdish independence push.

"We don't have anything called self-determination in our constitution," he said Thursday.

Kurdish leaders have threatened for years to hold an independence referendum but dropped previous threats after wresting concessions from the central government in Baghdad.

But now Kurdish fighters have seized control of disputed territory -- including the city of Kirkuk, a major oil hub. The Kurds said they seized the areas to protect them from the Sunni militants, but many of the zones have considerable Kurdish communities that the Kurds previously demanded be incorporated into their territory.

Al-Maliki demanded the Kurds give up the Kirkuk oil hub, which would make an independent Kurdish state more financially self-sufficient.

"Nobody has the right to take advantage of the current events to impose facts on the ground," he said. The oil field at Kirkuk "must be returned," he said.

The Kurdish region has long had a contentious relationship with Baghdad, with disputes over a range of issues including how to share its oil revenue.

In May, the Kurdish government sold oil independent of the central government for the first time, shipping about 1.05 million barrels to Turkey. In retaliation, Baghdad stopped giving the Kurds the share of the central budget they are entitled to receive.

The border of the Kurdish self-rule region is another point of contention. The Kurds said they have tried for years to get Baghdad to agree on where to draw the frontier, but the central government has dragged its feet. They have pointed to a constitutional amendment requiring that Kirkuk's fate be decided by referendum, which has never been implemented.

Region on edge

While the Sunni militants' offensive has created a more favorable situation for the Kurds, there is still significant opposition to changing the status quo.

Kurdish independence is opposed by the U.S., as well as by Iraq's regional neighbors, Turkey and Iran -- both of which have large Kurdish minority populations.

"Iraq is divided. We have got a new reality," Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff to Barzani, said Thursday. He was in Washington to update senior U.S. officials on Kurdish aspirations for "self-determination."

In a statement late Thursday, the White House said Vice President Joe Biden "dropped by" a meeting with Hussein and that "both sides agreed on the importance of forming a new government in Iraq that will pull together all communities in Iraq." A separate White House statement said Biden spoke by phone with Turkey's prime minister and that they agreed on "the importance of supporting lasting security and stability in Iraq."

State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said Wednesday that "a united Iraq is a stronger Iraq." She said the country's leaders should focus on the insurgency instead of drawing new borders, "and we should not give an opening to a horrific terrorist group by being divided at this critical moment."

The prospect of Kurdish independence is just one of the ripple effects caused by the Sunni insurgency, which is led by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The extremist group has carved out a large chunk of territory spanning the Syria-Iraq border and declared an Islamic state.

The group's growing strength has caused jitters across the region, particularly in neighboring Jordan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

A U.S. defense official said Thursday that Saudi troops were massing along the border with Iraq in response to the extremist group's advance toward the kingdom's frontier. Other countries in the region are nervous about their security and are moving to protect their borders, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. is not close to launching a military assault against the insurgents, but "may get to that point" if they become a threat to the American homeland.

Dempsey said he does not believe the U.S., at this point, needs to send in an "industrial strength" force with supplies to bolster Iraqi troops, adding that the most urgent need is a political solution centered on a more inclusive Iraqi government.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said about 200 U.S. military advisers are in Iraq assessing the situation and that they have opened a second joint operating center in the north in Irbil.

Dempsey said Thursday that the advisers "are categorically not involved in combat operations."

"If the assessment comes back and reveals it would be beneficial to this effort and to our national security interests to put the advisers in a different role, I will first consult with the secretary," Dempsey said. "We will consult with the president, we'll provide that option, and we'll move ahead. But that's where we are today."

President Barack Obama, who brought U.S. troops home from Iraq in 2011, has said they won't return to ground combat there as militants battle the Iraqi army. He hasn't ruled out airstrikes, while pressing first for Iraq to develop a more inclusive government.

The U.S. has more than 750 troops in Iraq, mainly providing security for the embassy and the airport.

Turkish captives freed

In northern Iraq on Thursday, the Sunni militants released 32 Turkish truck drivers who were captured when the extremists overran the city of Mosul last month. The truckers traveled to the capital of Iraq's Kurdish region before flying to southern Turkey.

Militants seized the truckers June 9 in Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city. Three days later, they took another 49 people from the Turkish Consulate in Mosul. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said efforts were underway to secure the release of the Turks still in captivity.

Davutoglu said all the Turks who had been released were in good condition.

One of the truck drivers, Servet Karakan, said he had lived in constant fear since he and the others were captured.

"Not a day went by without thinking it could be my last," he said. "Today my prayers have been answered by God almighty."

Mehmet Kizil, the owner of the transportation company employing the drivers, said the Islamic State had demanded $5 million to $10 million on separate occasions for the men's release, but the government had taken over negotiations. It was not immediately clear whether the government had paid ransom for the hostages' release.

The rapid pace of the militants' initial advance also left 46 Indian nurses stranded at a hospital in the militant-held northern city of Tikrit, Saddam's hometown. The nurses are safe but are being forced to move to an area controlled by the militants, said Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Syed Akbaruddin.

He also said 40 Indian construction workers abducted two weeks ago near Mosul were still being held but were unharmed.

The militants' assault in Iraq has eased in recent days since they began to encounter stiffer resistance in Shiite majority areas. Officials said almost 200 militants were killed in battles with the Iraqi army Thursday.

The toughest fighting was in Tikrit, where residents who fled their homes for the suburbs said Thursday that an intense bombing campaign by the Iraqi army was underway in a fight to retake the city center.

The militants, who took Salahuddin province, of which Tikrit is the capital, in mid-June, resorted to planting a series of roadside bombs and booby-trapping cars and houses in their effort to slow the Iraqi army's advance on the provincial capital. Iraqi forces dropped bombs anywhere they suspected the militants were present, whether those locations were government buildings or homes, witnesses said.

A Tikrit resident, who was unable to leave the city, and a member of the Iraqi security forces who was in one of the government buildings said in telephone interviews that 95 percent of the city's residents had fled and that only the very poor and those who were working with the militants remained.

The two men, who did not want to be quoted by name because they feared becoming targets, said there was no fuel for cars, no gas for stoves and no food. Stores were closed, and the people who were unable to flee were living on food stocks they gathered before the crisis began last month.

"It is a dead city now," said Adil al-Jubori, a tribal sheik from Tikrit, who fled to the northern suburb of Al-Alam. "There is no life inside."

Information for this article was contributed by Ryan Lucas, Bram Jansse, Suzan Fraser, Mehmet Guzel, Lolita C. Baldor, Lara Jakes and Barbara Surk of The Associated Press; by Tony Capaccio, Khalid al-Ansary, Nayla Razzouk, Mahmoud Habboush and Glen Carey of Bloomberg News; and by Ceylon Yeginsu and Alissa J. Rubin of The New York Times.

A Section on 07/04/2014

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