Tensions are mounting between Iraq and the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. A car bomb yesterday in Kirkuk killed 5 and seriously wounded 16, carrying the fingerprints of the Kurdish militia. Iraq and autonomous Kurdistan have deep disagreements over various issues mainly oil. Kurdistan will bear the sole responsibility in case civil war breaks out in Iraq - not an impossibility - as Masoud Barzani has been behaving in defiance of the Iraqi constitution concerning his foreign policies and agreements on oil deals. Barzani, a known stooge of the West, has signed agreements with various foreign oil companies without the approval of Baghdad. According to the constitution, oil agreements must be concluded by the Central Government. Iraqi Kurdistan is also making friendly overtures toward Israel which is flatly opposed to the policies of Baghdad. All that make it fairly clear that Iraqi Kurdistan does not consider itself a part of Iraq any longer but an independent entity even though 17% of Iraq's oil revenue goes to Kurdistan. At present, Baghdad has little or no control over border crossings and airports in Kurdistan. The situation is getting serious more rapidly than expected.
Though Turkey is infamously known for using excessive force repressing the movement of the PKK (Turkish Kurds) fighting for an independent homeland, in the conflict between the Iraqi Government and Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey is firmly behind autonomous Kurdistan .. based on selfish interest of course .. big time!
Ever since Turkey promised the Gulf Arab leaders of co-operating with their foreign policies, it began financing and training Al Qaeda terrorists and dispatching them to Syria. Turkey's interference and the role of a trouble-maker in Iraq/Kurdistan conflict is very similar to its approach involving Syria. Turkey is not happy with Nuri al-Malki's Shiia Government. PM Erdogan has hardly been able to conceal his eagerness to replace it with a Sunni regime in Baghdad and thus derive maximum benefits of Iraqi natural resources. And now, Turkey is using the Kurdish government as leverage against Baghdad. In the meantime, close ties with Masoud Barzani with promises of supporting him against Iraq will help Turkey to benefit from the oil resources of Iraqi Kurdistan and just as important, it will also greatly sever ties of cooperation between the separatists of Turkish Kurdistan (PKK) with their counterparts in Iraqi Kurdistan. Furthermore, as a bad neighbor it's very advantageous for Turkey to have a weak and unstable Iraq as that would make it easier for the regional powers to steal Iraq's enormous wealth and deprive her of an important position in the geopolitical sphere.
Another distasteful part of this story: Tareq Hashemi, former Iraqi PM and a top Sunni Muslim official in Iraq's Shiite Muslim government, is now a fugitive in Iraq and wanted for terror related activities. He was sentenced to death in absentia in 2011 by an Iraqi court for running death squads in occupied Iraq against Shiia Muslims. For quite sometime Hashemi hid in autonomous Kurdistan, protected by Barzani. In April of 2012, he visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. In September 2012, Erdogan confirmed that he would not hand over Hashemi to Iraq and he could stay in Turkey as an asylum seeker for as long as he wanted. Barzani, Erdogan and Hashemi make up the destructive trio rolling up their sleeves to once again wreck Iraq while imperialist leaders watch with pleasure.
Iraqi officials have been fearful of a civil war if the Kurdish dispute continues unabated. It's also an invitation to the U.S. to return and resume its occupation in Iraq. Despite majority of the American people being against all occupations by their government, the type of growing political instability that's being pushed ahead in Iraq by autonomous Kurdistan in alliance with Turkey will give an excuse to the U.S. Government to convince its people and the world that U.S. presence in Iraq is necessary to maintain "peace and order."
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