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| Iraq |
| Talabani says Maliki to visit Kurdistan soon |
| 2009-07-30 |
| SULAIMANIYA / Aswat al-Iraq: Iraqi President Jalal Talabani revealed on Wednesday that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will visit the Kurdistan region soon to discuss problems and differences with the Kurdish leadership. Maliki “will visit the Kurdistan region in the next few days. We’ll sit together to tackle the pending issues between Baghdad and the region here. These problems will be solved soon in accordance with the constitution,” Talabani said in a joint press conference with the Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barazani after a meeting in the resort of Ducan in Sulaimaniya. For his part, Barazani, who was today (July 29) re-elected for another term in office after garnering 69.57 percent of the votes in the Kurdistan presidential elections, said his meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates earlier on Wednesday dealt with the outstanding issues. “I believe that these problems must be settled in accordance with the Iraqi constitution, to which we are committed, and to which Baghdad must show full commitment too so as to reach radical solutions to these problems,” said Barazani. The bones of contention between the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) include security, peshmerga forces, disputed areas, foreign policy, oil & gas, power sharing and constitutional reforms. |
| Posted by:Steve White |