Another 2 reports of the story below. It is, IMHO, highly significant. The unraveling continues on another level now. That Bush is, like, a genius.
IRAQ: KURDISTAN DROPS IRAQI FLAG
Erbil, 31 August (AKI) - The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, has ordered the removal of the Iraqi national flag from all public buildings - a move which further signals the region's growing independence from Baghdad. The president's decree says that "only the Kurdish flag must be hoisted above the offices and institutions of the government of Iraqi Kurdistan, the peshmerga (local Kurdish fighters), and at check-points."
The decree also allows for the Iraqi national flag - red white and black horizontal stripes, with at the centre three green stars and the words Allahu Akbar (God is Great) - to be flown at "official functions", but without the religious phrase.
In addition political parties active in Kurdistan will be permitted to fly their own banners together with the Kurdistan flag.
In another development members of the Kurdistan regional parliament belonging to the Kurdish Patriotic Union of Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, have proposed the introduction of a Kurdistan national anthem.
adnki.com
Kurd president orders Iraqi flag replaced by Kurdish one
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) - Kurdistan President Massoud Barzani has ordered the Iraqi national flag be replaced with the Kurdish one in his northern autonomous region in what appeared to be another move toward more self-rule in northern Iraq, local officials said Friday.
The order was issued Thursday and applies to the Kurdish region, said Beshraw Ahmed, a spokesman for the Sulaimaniyah municipality.
Azad Jundiyanim, a member of President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Sulaimaniyah, said Barzani issued a formal message asking for the Iraqi flag to be lowered. The message was also broadcast on Kurdish radio.
Iraq's northern Kurdish region has slowly been gaining more autonomy since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
On May 7, its legislature in the northern city Irbil unified the Kurdish region's two long-standing administrations, one headed by Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic party and the other by Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Kurds had until then enjoyed self-rule in three provinces of northern Iraq but under the separate administrations.
Sunni Muslim Arabs fear Kurds are pushing for secession under Iraq's new federal system, a step which, if imitated by the Shiite Muslim majority in the oil-rich south, would leave Sunnis with little more than date groves and sand.
The Kurdish region had been out of deposed president Saddam Hussein's control since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when the Kurds set up their autonomous region under the protection of U.S. and British planes. After the U.S.-led invasion, Kurdistan was the only region that did not witness major changes.
Iraq's new constitution recognizes Kurdish self-rule and provides a legal mechanism for other areas to govern themselves but within the Iraqi state.
cnews.canoe.ca |
