Kurdistan calls sadr to lean to Constitution’s Article 140 to settle differences

ARBIL / IraqiNews.com: A spokesman for north Iraq Kurdistan Region’s government has said on Tuesday that Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution “is considered the only guarantee to settle differences,” in a comment on recent statements by the Chairman of the Shiite Sadr Trend, Muqtada al-Sadr, who warned against the merger of northeast Iraq’s Khanaquin Township to Kurdistan Region.   “The main trend of the Kurdistan Region’s government is to implement Article 140 to settle differences according to the Iraqi Constitution,” pointing out that “the Kurds in Khanaquin and its surrounding areas are facing compulsory immigration out of their home areas, thing that the Kurdistan Region’s government won’t allow,” Kawa Mahmoud told IraqiNews.com news agency.   Mahmoud said that the Kurdish Peshmerga forces have been spread in Khanaquin “in order to protect its Arab, Turkomen and Kurdish inhabitants and to prevent any demographic change in the area, because such trend does not cope with Iraq’s new policy,” adding that “Kurdistan Region’s government is committed to the Constitution and other forces and parties must be keen to its implementation.”   The satellite position of the Political Committee of the Sadrist Trend had quoted Sadr to have said, in his reply on calls to merge Khanaquin and its surrounding areas to Kurdistan Region, thing that the Sadrist Trend said it had “warned from and confirmed that the Federalism would take steps that won’t please anybody.”   The Kurdistan Region’s government had spread its Peshmerga forces around the areas surrounding Khanaquin to achieve “protection” for the inhabitants of those areas, after the escalation of violence acts the Kurds say they were targeted against their inhabitants, mostly belonging to the Kurdish Community.   Kurdistan Region’s President, Massoud Barzani, has met on Sept. 22 the Mayor of Khanaquin township and other Kurdish personalities and citizens, in which he said that “the main target for spreading the Peshmerga forces in the areas belonging to Khanaquin aims at achieving protection for the inhabitants of the Township, belonging to Arab, Kurdish and Turkomen Communities,” adding that “their security missions does not aim to protect a certain community against another.”   SKH (FT) 480