Barzani: Kurds are entitled to have an independent state/no reason for US forces to remain in Iraq/27/04/London (KurdishMedia.com)

http://www.kurdishmedia.com/news.asp?id=3775

Barzani: Kurds are entitled to have an independent state
27/04/2003 KurdishMedia.com
London (KurdishMedia.com) The leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party Massoud Barzani said yesterday that there would be no reason for US forces to remain in Iraq once a government takes over ahead of general elections.

To a question on the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel about his recent meeting with Jay Garner, the U.S. administrator for Iraq, Barzani said, "What we discussed with Garner is that the opposition leadership council would meet in Baghdad very soon, to be followed by a broader meeting of all Iraqi parties, forces and figures. But if matters stabilize and the national authority takes over and fills the security and administrative vacuum, there will no longer be any justification for the coalition forces to remain, and their (presence) would then be regarded as an occupation," Barzani said.

Barzani also added that Garner had promised the United States would deal with that government as "the legitimate representative of the Iraqi people."

Agreement that the Iraqis would pick their interim government had been reached with the Americans before they launched the war, said the KDP leader.

Barzani stated that Kurds were committed to a post-Hussein federal arrangement agreed with other groups that opposed the regime despite the fact that they in principle have the right to statehood.

"Like all other nations, the Kurdish nation is fully entitled to self-determination and the establishment of a Kurdish state," he said.

"But at the moment, we do not have an agenda different to that of the Iraqi opposition. We are pursuing the agenda hammered out at the London conference and the Salahaddin conference" in February, he said.

Asked whether the Kurds would eventually demand statehood, Barzani said: "Life progresses, the world progresses, and the Kurdish people too are entitled to progress with others."

Referring to Turkey(IU(Bs fears about the possible resurgence of separatist aspirations among Kurds in Turkey, Barzani said he was speaking strictly about Iraqi Kurds.

"The Kurdish nation is one ... but fact is that the Kurdish nation is now scattered and we now bear the responsibility of settling the Kurdish issue in Iraq," said Barzani, speaking from KDP Salahaddin headquarters in south Kurdistan.

"Resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey or Iran or anywhere else is up to the Kurds there. However, in the long term, and from a strategic standpoint, the Kurdish nation is entitled to unite and to have an independent state," he said.