Posted on 04/04/2007 11:54:34 PM PDT by BlueSky194
A Shiite newspaper published in Baghdad reported Tuesday that Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani had turned down a 2-billion- US dollar offer from the Saudis in return for giving up demands to have Kurdish oil-rich of Kirkuk as the capital of Kurdistan.
Al-Bianh al-Jadidah newspaper said that the Saudi offer was made to Barzani and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih when they visited Saudi Arabia last month.
The Saudis asked for a 10-year freeze on the Kurdish demand to incorporate Kirkuk in the north of Iraq into Kurdistan autonomous region.
The newspaper said that an Iraqi government source, who did not want to be named, said both Barzani and Salih had declined to give in to Saudi pressure to give up the "Kurds' historical rights to the city."
Kirkuk city just outside the Kurdistan autonomous region and it is not under the full control of Kurdistan Regional Government administration, its population is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs, Turkmen.
The Iraqi Constitution mandates that a referendum on control of Kirkuk must be held by the end of this year to decide whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
Article date should be 4/3 instead of 3/3
The Saudi’s want Israel to give away Jerusalem, but want Kirkuk to be apart of the Sunni triangle.
You mean that someone values principle over money? How unique.
Ping
The Saudis must be thinking the Kurds are fools. The oil of Kirkuk is far more worth than lousy 2 billion.
Kudos to the Kurds.
Some people think their money can buy them anything, I guess.....
I am in favor of the type of drilling that has the well-head on one plot of ground, and the angle drilling going under the other guys piece of ground. Don’t know why more of that isn’t practiced in the Mid-East, but then I don’t know that it isn’t, either.
Here, I’ll trade you these beads for those mountains over there.
*shakes beads*
See how pretty they are?
LOL
Our friends the Saudi’s trying to undermine the only group in Iraq which is stable and pro-American.
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