URGENT / “Kirkuk’s issue is not issue for bargaining,” Barzani says

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: The Chairman of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Kurdistan President, Massoud Barzani, has said in his opening speech of DPK’s 13th Conference in Arbil on Saturday that “the issue of Kirkuk is not an issue for bargaining.” “Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, related to the areas in dispute, must be implemented, in order to lift the oppression against the inhabitants of those areas, including Kirkuk,” Barzani said in his speech. The Kurds are demanding to merge north Iraq‘s oil-rich city of Kirkuk and some other northern and northeast areas of Iraq, with a Kurdish majority, to north Iraq‘s Kurdistan Region. “When the disputed areas, especially Kirkuk, return to the Kurdistan Region, according to the constitutional mechanism, there shall be justice in the ruling administration,” Barzani said. “There cannot be any bargaining on the issue of Kirkuk. The issue of Kirkuk must be settled according to the constitutional mechanism, including the completion of naturalization processes, to be followed by the general census and then the defining of the the Province’s fate, which the KDP demands to merge to other provinces of Kurdistan Region,” Barzani stressed. SKH/SR 28