IRAQ: Kurds Overtake the Rest

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Mohammed A. Salih

ARBIL, May 10 2006 (IPS) - Kurds had long waited for the day when the new prime minister walked into the parliament hall with his deputy and cabinet members.

The ceremony Sunday marked the coming together of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) in a unified government, after years of separation.

Nechirvan Barzani of the KDP was appointed the new prime minister. Omar Fatah of PUK was appointed deputy prime minister. A 42-member cabinet took oath in a 105-member parliament.

The two Kurdish parties came together close to ten years after signing a peace accord in Washington in 1997.

The coming together of the two Kurdish factions stood in marked contrast to what is happening elsewhere in Iraq. A Kurdish parliament is now in place, in Baghdad it is not.

The Kurdish government took shape following a long history of separation during which the two parties governed different regions of Kurdistan in the north of Iraq separately. Kurdish provinces have been under Kurdish control since the 1991 Gulf War.

The new Kurdish leadership plans to expand the areas under control to include the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which falls at present just outside the Kurd area.

Barzani declared Sunday his government will work “peacefully to recover the rights that have been taken away.” It was not a remark welcomed by Sunni and Shia leaders at the ceremony. Kirkuk has a large non-Kurd population.

But Barzani’s remarks are being taken seriously. When the first Kurd government was established in 1992, only a handful of guests attended.. This time foreign and Iraqi dignitaries swarmed the parliament hall.

“Their presence at the ceremony is a recognition of Kurds’ entity, their power and status in the soon to be formed Iraqi government,” Fuad Baban, member of the Kurdish parliament told IPS.

U.S. ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad attended the ceremony, and did not fail to acknowledge “the sacrifices of Kurdish peshmarga (fighters)” for the freedom of Iraq.

In the Kurdish parliament there is little sign of Iraq. Everything is Kurdish, down to the flag and the language.

Even the Iraqi flag hoisted here is not the one used in Baghdad. It is the one used in Iraq in 1958 after the overthrow of the monarchy and establishment of the first republican government.

The new unity, and the distinct Kurdish ways, are driven by good reasons. “The unity and harmony among us is the catalyst for our current and future success,” Barzani said.

The new cabinet includes ministers from various ethnic and religious groups to “satisfy all sectarian, ethnic and political groups,” new minister Mohammed Haji Mahmoud from the Kurdistan Socialist Democratic Party told IPS..

Though not satisfied with the little role for his party in the cabinet, Mahmoud said “we decided to participate in order to add a block to the wall of this government.”

The new cabinet was approved in less than 20 minutes, and all 42 cabinet members were ratified with only a few ‘nay’ votes.

The formalities done, people are waiting to see how the parliament can change their lives. They have become increasingly dissatisfied with the Kurdish government. Quality of services is poor, and corruption has reached alarming levels. “The government has to be up to people’s expectations, and work to provide better living conditions,” said Aryan Mohammed, 23, a government employee in Arbil.