“Kurds have right to self-determination – their independent state,” Kurdistan Speaker says

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: North Iraq’s Kurdistan Parliament’s Speaker, Kamal Karkuki, has said on Tuesday that “Iraqi Kurds reserve the right for self-determination and to have their own independent state.”   “We have the right to practice our right for self-determination on our land, and to have our independent state, similar to others, being a normal constitutional right; and as long as Iraq keeps its constitutional principles, we shall remain to be part of Iraq, which we have chosen to become part of its Federal State,” Karkuki said in an interview with al-Sharq al-Awsat Newspaper.   He pointed out that “the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution had been delayed for a long time, despite fact that Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, had committed himself to implement it.”   “Claims that the said Article has died, had been a great and dreadful political mistake, because it is a constitutional article that won’t die unless by the death of the constitution itself,” Karkuki said.   Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution points out to the naturalization of conditions in the areas, described as “areas under-conflict,” in a clear sign for the conflict about their belonging to Kurdistan Region, including Kirkuk Province and parts of Ninewa and Diala Provinces.   The Constitution had defined a time limit to implement the said Article, through measures that ended on December 31, 2007, leaving residents of those areas with the freedom of self-determination, whether to stay as an independent administrative area, or their mergence with Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, through a general referendum.   But certain obstacles had caused the postponement of implementing some of the basic contents of the said Article, for reasons Kurdish politicians consider as “political,” whilst Baghdad says that the delay was not intentional, at a time when a special ministerial committee had implemented some of its contents, such as the compensation of some of the harmed residents, while the most important paragraph, related to self-determination in those areas was not implemented.   SKH (TF)/SR 932