Posted on 06/27/2014 5:08:52 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani said June 27 there was no going back on autonomous Kurdish rule in oil city Kirkuk and other towns now defended against Sunni militants by Kurdish fighters.
"Now, this (issue) ... is achieved," he said, referring to a constitutional article meant to address the Kurds' decades-old ambition to incorporate the territory in their autonomous region in the north over the objections of successive governments in Baghdad.
Kurdish forces stepped in when federal government forces withdrew in the face of a jihadist-led offensive earlier this month.
Speaking at a joint news conference with visiting British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Barzani said: "We have been patient for 10 years with the federal government to solve the problems of these (disputed) areas.
"There were Iraqi forces in these areas, and then there was a security vacuum, and (Kurdish) peshmerga forces went to fill this vacuum."
The swathe of territory in question stretches from Iraq's border with Iran to its frontier with Syria, and is one of several long-running rows between Baghdad and Kurdish authorities in Arbil.
The disputes have been cited by analysts and diplomats as among the biggest long-term threats to Iraq's stability.
They’d better start building up an air force, and the figuring out a source of tax revenue to fund it, and the existing army. They’ll need one to ward off the Shiites, once ISIS is history.
“They’d better start building up an air force, and the figuring out a source of tax revenue to fund it, and the existing army.”
The Kurds are a tough bunch and have held their own in the rough terrain of their homeland. But acquiring an air force will be expensive. It will also raise them much higher on the target list in this multi-player struggle. Better to keep a lower profile. In the War of the Rats, the weaker parties at the outset are often the ones left standing.
I wish them luck. Do they have access to oil in their new region/homeland?
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