Friday, October 06, 2006
Rice in talks with Barzani
Politics
Meeting with political leaders in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region today, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called for profits from oil sales to be shared equitably across Iraq. Rice met with Mas'ud Barzani, the Kurdish region's president and leader of one of the two main Kurdish parties, in the city of Irbil. The regional government threatened two weeks ago to break away from Iraq because of a dispute over oil profits. Washington fears a Kurdish declaration of independence would accelerate the possible disintegration of Iraq and knows it would be bound to anger regional ally Turkey, which has a restive Kurdish minority of its own.
But the sensitivity of the situation was on display at the press conference itself, where Rice and Barzani stood in front of US and Kurdish flags, but not the Iraqi national flag, which the Kurdish leader has banned. Barzani met with Rice for 45 minutes and said afterwards: "We are for a fair distribution of oil revenues for the Iraqis," adding that the meeting was "constructive" and that their views were "very similar".
But the sensitivity of the situation was on display at the press conference itself, where Rice and Barzani stood in front of US and Kurdish flags, but not the Iraqi national flag, which the Kurdish leader has banned. Barzani met with Rice for 45 minutes and said afterwards: "We are for a fair distribution of oil revenues for the Iraqis," adding that the meeting was "constructive" and that their views were "very similar".
