Information and liaison bulletin - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ôzeti
REUTERS f
November 19, 2007 By Shamal Aqrawi and Aseel Kami
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's northern Kurdistan region have banned
journalists from travelling to Kurdish rebel bases, officials said on Mon¬
day, accusing the media of aggravating the crisis with Turkey.
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) spokesman Jamal Abdullah said
the semi-autonomous KRG would stop journalists going to Iraq's northern
border and interviewing Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels who have
launched attacks against Turkish soldiers.
"We will not allow journalists or the media to send any reporter ... to
where the PKK are, whether on the border or the area of Qandil moun¬
tains," Abdullah said.
He said media reports had led to an "acceleration of the crisis with Tur¬
key". "We will try in different ways to calm the situation," he said.
Turkey has massed 100,000 troops backed by tanks, artillery and planes
on Iraq's border and threatened to launch a major military operation to
crush PKK fighters.
Iraqi President Jalal al-Talabani, a Kurd, said last week that a limited
invasion appeared inevitable.
Abdullah denied accusations from media watchdog, the Iraqi Journalistic
Freedoms Observatory, that Kurdish security forces had detained several
November November 20, 2007
Iraq's Kurdistan bans media from going
to PKK bases
journalists.
The Iraqi non-governmental organisation said a team working for al-Hurra
television, including correspondent Ali al-Yasi, was detained in the Zakho
area near the Turkish border.
It said a Japanese television reporter had also been detained in the Bativa
border area but did provide any more details.
Journalists have flocked to Iraq's northern border as tensions have grown
over attacks on Turkish soldiers by PKK rebels operating from Iraq's
mountainous north.
The KRG has taken steps to block supplies to the rebels, but Ankara is
pressing Iraq to do more.
The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory said in a statement that it rejec¬
ted "random decisions" by the Kurdish government, adding that authorities
had been "harassing" journalists and hindering their work.
The Iraqi Association of Defence of Journalists' Rights, another non¬
governmental organization, said an order preventing journalists from
going to border regions had been issued by the Kurdistan president's office
on November 14.
Abdullah said no such order had been issued.
Guardian
Iraq: High-level quarrel highlights rift
between Sunnis, Shiites
By HAMZA HENDAWI
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's prime minister
lashed out at the country's Sunni Arab vice
president in an interview published Tuesday,
drawing attention to a bitter rift between two
key politicians from rival sects at a time the
U.S. is pressing for Iraqi unity.
The outburst by Nouri al-Maliki, printed in a
ondon-based, Arabic-language daily, al-
Maliki, a Shiite, said Vice President Tariq al-
Hashemi was to blame for a backlog of
legislation adopted by parliament but not yet
ratified by the three-man presidential council
of which the Sunni is a member.
Al-Maliki also said al-Hashemi's Iraq
Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in
parliament, was not representative of the
country's Sunni Arab community.
The prime minister said he had given up
trying to persuade five members of al-
Hashemi's bloc to return to Cabinet posts
they abandoned last August in a dispute with
al-Maliki.
Al-Maliki said he planned to name other
Sunnis from Anbar province and the cities of
Tikrit and Mosul to those Cabinet posts and
that "we are in the final selection stage."
For months, al-Hashemi has been a sharp
102
newspaper read throughout the Arab world,
occurred as American officials are urging the
Iraqis to take advantage of a downturn in
violence to resolve their differences before
next year's planned drawdown of U.S.
forces.
In the interview, published by Al-Hayat, a L
and outspoken critic of al-Maliki, accusing
him of pursuing pro-Shiite sectarian policies
and restricting decision-making inside a
small circle of top aides from his Dawa party.
However, al-Maliki's attack on al-Hashemi
and his criticism of the Accordance Front
suggested that the rift between the two sides
was widening, rather than closing.
"It's a campaign to discredit good
intentions," said Lubnah al-Hashemi, the vice
president's daughter and his press secretary.
"But we refuse to be drawn into a war of
words through the media," she said.
She said the vice president has refused to
sign off on some legislation because he
wanted "certain things" added in the public
interest. She did not elaborate.
The vice president's office e-mailed to The
Associated Press a list of 13 draft laws he
had rejected. Most were relatively minor.
One exception was a bill allowing investors
to build and run oil refineries.
The vice president said the legislation could
lead to a monopoly over an essential
commodity.
Al-Hashemi's ally in the Accordance Front,
Adnan al-Dulaimi, said their bloc never
claimed it spoke for all Sunni Arabs.
"I wonder why al-Maliki included us in the
government and gave us several ministerial
posts if we were not representing the
Sunnis," al-Dulaimi said.
The U.S. military says overall attacks have
fallen 55 percent since nearly 30,000
additional American troops arrived in Iraq by
June, and that parts of the country are
experiencing their lowest levels of violence in
more than two years.