10-01-2010
Bagdad - The Deputy Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament Arif Tayfur said that political groups use violence against Kurdish families in the provinces of Diyala and Nineveh and force them to leave. Tayfur says this could result in unfair Iraqi elections. “In the last period, there was found proof of commando’s, formed by ex-Baathists of the Iraqi government and Al-Qaida groups, that forced thousands of Kurdish families to leave the regions Jalawe and Saidiye,” he said. The Iraqi politician asks the Iraqi government to end these ‘Baathists practices’ and to secure these regions and to let the Kurdish families return and protect them. Tayfur also criticized the governor of Nineveh Asil al-Nujaifi for failing to protect the Kurds. Earlier the governor said he would not give ‘one inch of land’ to the Kurds and said the Kurdish armed forces in the disputed regions, should be replaced by the Iraqi government. The Kurdish intelligence chief Masrour Barzani told the American thinktank Jamestown last week, that the ethnic cleansing of Kurds goes unreported, despite claims of Kurds threatening minorities in the disputed regions. In the last few months there have been an increased violence against Kurds and Kurds are forced to leave regions, inhabited by a majority of Arabs. Kurds fear this will influence their number of votes during the upcoming Iraqi elections on 7 March 2010 (Photo: newsmatique)
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