The Obama administration supports the move, which officials have said requires legislative action rather than an executive order from the White House.
Washington designated the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan as terrorist groups in 2001 in part for their insurgent activity in the 1990s Kurdish civil war.
In introducing their bill, Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Senator John McCain argued that the two groups took up arms against Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and have since helped stabilize the region.
- "It is time we stop treating the KDP and PUK as terrorists," McCain said in a statement.
- Their designation in the Patriot Act as Tier III terrorist organizations "betrays our Kurdish friends and allies who have served as a stabilizing force in the region and displayed consistent loyalty to the United States throughout the years."
The two groups are now the main political parties in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani is a PUK founder, while KDP chief Massoud Barzani is the current Iraqi Kurdish leader. Both men have met with President Barack Obama at the White House.
A US official told lawmakers in February that the administration was seeking a legislative fix that would remove the two groups from the list.
"The PUK, the KDP have been among our closest friends in the region, going back decades. We think they should be removed from this list as soon as possible," Brett McGurk, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran, told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
- "We are 100 percent supportive of an immediate legislative fix to this problem."
- The State Department designated another Kurdish group, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.
The PKK launched an insurgency in 1984 seeking self-rule in southeastern Turkey that has claimed about 45,000 lives.
AFP
[hurriyetdailynews.com]
12/4/14
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Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced on April 8 that an independent Kurdish state is to be established, pointing out that they are moving towards a confederation with Iraq..........
ReplyDeleteBarzani‘s remarks came during an interview with Sky News Arabia TV, briefed by “Shafaq News.” Barzani pointed out that the Kurdish state has become a reality and this independence should be achieved in the near future. He stated that the events occurring in Iraq will lead to a confederation system. Iraq cannot “bear more conflicts” and the leaderships should sit together to end the current crises, Barzani added.
The relations between the Iraqi Kurdish region and Baghdad have been witnessing the highest degree of tension in the last period due to the lack of agreement on a number of outstanding issues repeated every year, including the problem of the Iraqi public budget, the export of oil from the region and the application of the constitutional Article 140, as well as political differences on power management in Baghdad.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/kurdish-independent-state-to-come-barzani.aspx?pageID=238&nID=64921&NewsCatID=352
12/4/14
Iraqi insurgents block Euphrates to flood army positions near Fallujah...
ReplyDeleteIraqi militants have captured a dam just south of the city of Fallujah, in order to strategically flood selected parts of the valley and stall the advance of security forces, which have been shelling the city since its seizure by insurgents last year.
One week ago, militants with the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) flooded the area around the city with the waters of the Euphrates by closing all of the dam’s 10 gates to stop the government forces’ siege of Fallujah.
This also caused the lowering of water levels in the southern provinces, which lead to the Persian Gulf.
Fallujah is about 70km from the capital, Baghdad. In February of this year, ISIL gained control of the area 5km south of the western city, where the dam is located. It is essentially used to distribute the river’s waters evenly and through the western Anbar province.
Officials reported that the flooding around Fallujah had already started displacing families, even though the insurgents opened up five gates to lower the pressure.
Moreover, when the water levels started going down, power blackouts and shortages to the south of Baghdad were witnessed. The area there is entirely powered by steam-powered generators. A spokesman for the Iraqi Electricity Ministry said the power supply from Mussayab power station had decreased from 170 megawatts to just 90 megawatts.
Officials now warn that farming too could suffer from water shortages, as irrigation in Iraq’s southern provinces is entirely dependent on the Euphrates. Iraq is mostly either desert or arable land, which is the country’s most precious treasure.
“Using water as a weapon in a fight to make people thirsty is a heinous crime… Closing the dam and messing with Euphrates water will have dire consequences,” an adviser to the Water Ministry, Oun Dhiya, told Reuters.................http://rt.com/news/iraq-dam-fallujah-isil-104/
12/4/14