AFP/Baghdad
Tensions between Arabs and Kurds along a tract of disputed territory in northern and eastern Iraq are the top driver of instability in the country, a senior US general said yesterday.
Brigadier General Steve Lanza, the spokesman for US forces here, added that “malign” influences from Iran and Syria are on the decline but remain a concern.
“We assess Arab-Kurd tensions as the number one driver of instability in Iraq,” Lanza told reporters at a press conference in central Baghdad.
“We are working very hard to help reduce tensions in northern Iraq,” he noted, adding that a committee made up of top US commanders, senior members of the Kurdish government in Arbil, and the central government in Baghdad is meeting to discuss confidence-building initiatives.
He noted that no such initiatives have yet been tabled, but General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, said in August that the US was discussing arrangements that could see its troops work alongside Iraqi and Kurdish forces in disputed areas of northern Iraq.
Kurdish leaders have long demanded that their autonomous region comprising three provinces be expanded to include historically Kurdish-inhabited parts of Nineveh and Diyala as well as all of Kirkuk.
Baghdad, however, says the Kurdish region’s borders should not extend past Arbil, Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk provinces.
Lanza said any initiatives will need the approval of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Kurdish President Masoud Barzani, must be in accordance with a Washington-Baghdad security agreement signed last year and should ensure that any involvement of US troops is temporary.
“We are going through every procedure possible right now to bring those two (Iraqi and Kurdish) armies together for the good of Iraq,” he said. |
