Thread: Archive Latest News - Think Tank - 03/11/07 - 31/12/07

US Official: US will not let anything happen which affects the Stability of Kurdistan Region

The speaker of Kurdistan region parliament, Adnan Mufti received a delegation from the region’s reconstruction team (RRT) in the US embassy in Baghdad including Jessie Billy, coordinator of Kurdistan region affairs and Deputy Chairman of (RRT) and several other officials today in Erbil.

The political situation in Kurdistan region, the Turkish threats and the programme of (RRT) were discussed during the meeting which was attended by the vice president of Kurdistan region parliament, Kamal Karkuki.

Deputy Chairman of (RRT) appreciated the wise stance of Kurdistan region political leadership about handling with the Turkish threats of invading Kurdistan region territory also appreciating the efforts by KRG in releasing the Turkish detainees’ soldiers at PKK.

Deputy Chairman of (RRT) said that President Bush and US foreign secretary Condoleezza Rice are following seriously the current development in the area, reassuring that US will not let anything happen which affects the stability of Kurdistan region.

On return, the speaker of Kurdistan region parliament thanked the friendly stance of US, and then he presented a summary of the stance of Kurdistan region political leadership emphasizing their peaceful stance to deal with the issue between Iraq and Turkey.

PUKmedia :: English - US Official: US will not let anything happen which affects the Stability of Kurdistan Region

Quadruple Summit in Cairo Stresses Iraq's Territorial Integrity

A quadruple summit of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Sudan's Omar al-Bashir, and Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh stressed the importance of maintaining Iraq's sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity and disregarding calls for the country's division.

"During the meeting President Mubarak underlined the importance of rendering the political process a success in order to stem the bloodshed in Iraq," Ambassador Soliman Awwad, the spokesman for the Egyptian presidency, said in statements in Cairo on Sunday.

Presidents Mubarak and Talabani also saw eye to eye on steering clear of any sectarian or ethnic strife in Iraq and preserving the country's identity and territorial integrity as prerequisites for the success of the political process, said Awwad.

The meeting tackled the situation in northern Iraq, added Awwad, reiterating the Egyptian position that urges Iraqi and Turkish sides to stick to self-restraint.

Talabani had arrived in the Egyptian capital on Saturday to attend the inauguration of the 11th Arab Games Tournament, which kicked off on Sunday evening and will run until November 25.

A presidential statement in Baghdad on Sunday read that Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit discussed with Talabani a visit by Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari to Egypt for talks on setting up a joint committee to activate all agreements between the two countries.

The Egyptian top diplomat has expressed relief over the current developments in Iraq's security and economic spheres and said his country was ready to ease movement of citizens between the two countries, the statement read.

The statement also quoted President Talabani as saying "all groups of the Iraqi people welcome strong ties with Egypt and look forward to having it play its expected role in backing Iraq at the international, Arab, and regional levels.

Jalal al-Mashta, an advisor for the Iraqi leader, said President Talabani and his accompanying delegation will leave Egypt, which he visited for the second time as president, for Kuwait and then Saudi Arabia to take part in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) meeting.

PUKmedia :: English - Quadruple Summit in Cairo Stresses Iraq's Territorial Integrity

U.S. Offers 197 Million $ for the Iraqi Refugees

The U.S. Department of State announced in Nov. 10th the “Facts Statement”, which included a list for the human assistance to help the Iraqi refugees inside and outside Iraq.

The statement declared that the American Government had spent more than 197 million US$ through the international and non government organizations in the year 2007 to help the refugees.

And according to Refugees program, 1608 Iraqis entered to the U.S. in 2007, and it is expected that the number will reach 12000 in 2008.

The UNCHR announced in February its intention to transfer 20000 Iraqis to several countries in 2007.

PUKmedia :: English - U.S. Offers 197 Million $ for the Iraqi Refugees

US 'Stalling' on Iraq Executions

Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki has criticised US forces for failing to hand over for execution three former prominent figures in Saddam Hussein's regime.
The three, including Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali", were condemned to death for the campaign against the Iraqi Kurds in the 1980s.

There has been division in the Iraqi leadership over the executions and the US says it is waiting for consensus.

There is suspicion the US does not want ex-defence chief Sultan Hashim to hang.

It is on the former defence minister, one of Majid's alleged accomplices, that the controversy is focused.

The death sentences on the three were upheld by an appeals court in September.

Under Iraqi law, the three men should then have been hanged within 30 days.

But the verdict should also have been approved by the three-man presidential council and that is where the issue turned into a major political row.

'Incensed'

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd himself, opposes the death penalty in principle.

One of his two vice-presidents, Tareq al-Hashimi, a Sunni, is particularly incensed by the death sentence on Sultan Hashim and has threatened to resign if it is carried out.

The Americans, who are physically holding the three convicted men, have refrained from handing them over to Mr. Maliki's Shia-led government for execution.

Now Mr. Maliki has lashed out at them, accusing the US embassy of dragging its feet and causing a violation of the constitution.

He insists all three men should be delivered for execution.

There is a strong suspicion the US is reluctant to see the former defence minister hang.

It has been widely reported that he was in touch with the CIA during Saddam Hussein's rule and took part in plots to unseat him.

Sultan Hashim's supporters, Sunnis and others, say that like many others at the time he was simply obeying orders and not driving policy.

PUKmedia :: English - US 'Stalling' on Iraq Executions

Eight Turkish soldiers facing charges after being freed by PKK


ANKARA, Nov. 12 (Xinhua) -- Eight Turkish soldiers who were released by the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) last week after being taken hostage in an ambush were arrested and charged on Sunday by an order of the Van Military Court, local media reported on Monday. The eight soldiers will now face trial in custody based on "the existence of strong evidence that the crime of insisting on disobeying orders -- which caused great harm -- was committed," according to the report.
The court also accused the young men of crossing into a foreign country without permission, the report added.
The probe into the eight soldiers was launched in Ankara by the General Staff shortly after they were released and returned to Turkey on Nov. 4.
The Van military prosecutor's office on Sunday ruled to refer the young men to the court, bringing the charges that they disobeyed orders.
The prosecutor's statement also said that the "content and quality of the crime has exceedingly broken military discipline," but it was not immediately clear what this charge referred to.
Ramazan Korkmaz, a lawyer representing the eight soldiers, was quoted as saying the defendants have denied all charges, saying that they had not disobeyed any orders.
Since their return, the soldiers have been accused by some of helping promote PKK propaganda.
Meanwhile, another investigation after the hostage crisis began into the three deputies of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) of Turkey who traveled to northern Iraq to negotiate the release of the eight soldiers with the PKK.
The eight soldiers were captured by PKK rebels in an ambush in southeastern Turkey last month, which also left 12 others soldiers dead, nearly leading to a Turkish cross-border operation into northern Iraq.
The hostage incident came amid an impasse along the Turkish-Iraqi border as Ankara threatened to launch military operations into Iraq to crush some 3,000 Kurdish rebels based there, which triggered mounting international concerns.
Eight Turkish soldiers facing charges after being freed by PKK_English_Xinhua

Iraq: Sharp Drop in Rocket, Mortar Fire

Rocket and mortar attacks in Iraq have decreased to their lowest levels in more than 21 months, the U.S. military said Monday.

Last month saw 369 "indirect fire" attacks — the lowest number since February 2006. October's total was half of what it was in the same month a year ago. And it marked the third month in a row of sharply reduced insurgent activity, the military said.

The U.S. command issued the tallies a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said suicide attacks and other bombings in Baghdad also have dropped dramatically, calling it an end of sectarian violence.

A top U.S. general said he believed the drop was sustainable, as Iraqis turn away from extremists.

Total rocket and mortar attacks rose steadily from 808 in January 2007 to a peak of 1,032 in June, before falling over the next four months, a U.S. military statement said Monday.

That decline also was seen in Baghdad, where such attacks rose from 139 in January to 224 in June, and then fell to only 53 attacks in October, it said.

On Sunday, al-Maliki said "terrorist acts" including car bombings and other spectacular, al-Qaeda-style attacks dropped by 77 percent in the capital. He called it a sign that Sunni-Shiite violence was nearly gone.

"We are all realizing now that what Baghdad was seeing every day — dead bodies in the streets and morgues — is ebbing remarkably," al-Maliki told reporters at his office in the U.S.-guarded Green Zone.

"This is an indication that sectarianism intended as a gate of evil and fire in Iraq is now closed," he said.

Associated Press figures show a sharp drop in the number of U.S. and Iraqi deaths across the country in the past few months. The number of Iraqis who met violent deaths dropped from at least 1,023 in September to at least 905 in October, according to an AP count.

The number of American military deaths fell from 65 to at least 39 over the same period.

Before the arrival of nearly 30,000 U.S. reinforcements this past spring, explosions shook Baghdad daily — sometimes hourly. The whiz of mortar and rocket fire crisscrossing the Tigris River was frequent. And the pop-pop of gunfire beat out a constant, somber rhythm of killing.

Now the sounds of warfare are rare. American troops have set up small outposts in some of the capital's most dangerous enclaves. Locals previously lukewarm to the presence of U.S. soldiers patrol alongside them. And a historic lane on the eastern banks of the Tigris is set to reopen later this year, lined with seafood restaurants and an art gallery.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of U.S. forces south of the capital, said Sunday he believed the decrease would hold, because of what he called a "groundswell" of support from regular Iraqis.

"If we didn't have so many people coming forward to help, I'd think this is a flash in the pan. But that's just not the case," Lynch told a small group of reporters over lunch in the Green Zone.

He attributed the sharp drop in attacks to the American troop buildup, the setup of small outposts at the heart of Iraqi communities, and help from locals fed up with al-Qaeda and other extremists.

"These people — Sunni and Shiite — are saying, `I've had enough,'" Lynch said.

The U.S. military has recruited at least 26,000 Iraqis to help target militants in Lynch's area of operations, he said. The religiously mixed area, which includes suburbs of Baghdad and all of Karbalaa, Najaf and Wassit province along the Iranian border, is about the size of the U.S. state of West Virginia.

Some 17,000 of those people, whom the U.S. military calls "concerned local citizens," are paid $300 a month to man checkpoints and guard critical infrastructure in their hometowns, Lynch said.

"They live there, and they know who's the good guy and who's the bad guy," he said.

Such local expertise has paid off for American troops and their Iraqi counterparts, who have killed or captured about 3,000 insurgents in the area in the past year, Lynch said.

Since November 2006, tips from local citizens have helped U.S. troops confiscate 2,470 rocket and mortar caches across Iraq, the U.S. military said.

Also Monday, the mayor of a northern Iraqi city told the AP that Iraqi soldiers killed four men in clashes that lasted throughout the night.

Hours after a tribal chieftain was killed in front of his village's mosque, Iraqi soldiers stormed the area and engaged armed men in an hours-long battle, killing four of them and wounding two, said Tal Afar Mayor Gen. Najim Abdullah. Troops also seized a machine gun and some rifles, he said.

Abdullah said several other men were arrested, and later confessed to the sheik's killing as well as other murders in the area. He did not give a number of those arrested.

Tal Afar is an ethnically mixed city about 90 miles east of the Syrian border, and 260 miles northwest of Baghdad.

PUKmedia :: English - Iraq: Sharp Drop in Rocket, Mortar Fire

Iraq rocket fire 'falls sharply'

Reduced rocket attacks appear to be part of a wider fall in violence

Rocket and mortar attacks in Iraq are reported to have fallen to their lowest levels for nearly two years. The US military said such attacks in October fell to 369, half the level during October 2006. This is the third month running of reduced rocket fire.
Mortar and rocket attacks in Baghdad showed a similar pattern, falling to 53 in October from more than 200 in June.
US officials said this was in part due to the US troop surge for the capital launched in February.
Other reasons for the reduction were the discovery of arms caches following tip-offs from Iraqis, the killing of more insurgents and successful reconciliation campaigns, US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel James Rikard said.
Upbeat briefings
US commanders and Iraqi officials have been briefing regularly that violence levels have dropped.
This appears to be supported by figures from Iraqi ministries on the death toll in Iraq - 887 Iraqis were killed in October, up on the September figure but significantly lower than the 1,992 deaths recorded in January 2007.
Some US military officials have said that al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group believed to be behind many of the biggest suicide bombings, has been driven out of Baghdad.
Other senior US officers warned recently that the downward trend in violence was not yet irreversible.
On Sunday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki said that car bombs and roadside bombings in Baghdad had dropped by 77% compared to levels prior to the launch of the US troop surge.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq rocket fire 'falls sharply'

Iraq's displaced people nightmare

By Magdi Abdelhadi
BBC Arab affairs analyst


The huge displacement of people inside Iraq appears to be contributing to the further fragmentation of the country.
Sectarian violence has forced people from their homes across Iraq


The scale of the overall displacement is unprecedented in the modern history of the Middle East.
There are now an estimated four million Iraqis who have been forced to flee their homes, and the numbers continue to rise, according to the UN refugee agency.
Neighbouring Jordan and Syria, which have borne the brunt of the problem after receiving some two million refugees over the past few years, have now restricted access because they can no longer cope with the influx.
The plight of those who have fled their homes but have not been able to leave the country is dire, says the UN refugee agency.
The head of the Iraq Support Unit, Andrew Harper, told the BBC that an increasing number of provinces were turning the refugees away because they lacked resources to look after them.
He said with so many people in desperate need of shelter and food, Iraq was like a pressure-cooker.
Beyond Baghdad's control
Mr Harper said the UN agency had raised the issue with the central government in Baghdad, but was told that the local authorities had been urged to shelter the fleeing Iraqis.
This means that local governments are in effect ignoring directives from Baghdad.
Steve Simon of the US Council on Foreign Relations told the BBC: "Local authorities are taking ever greater unilateral prerogative in areas that they control because the central state is ineffective, it lacks capacity."
Mr Simon said the local governments were facing hard choices.
"They are not going to make their local constituencies unhappy by letting all these displaced persons from other areas in Iraq in to split a pie that is already pretty meagre," he said.
The refugee problem is also likely to make national reconciliation even more difficult to achieve.


BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iraq's displaced people nightmare

Iraq Hopes to End Baghdad Security Plan Soon

Iraq's government hopes it will soon be able to declare an end to a U.S.-Iraqi security operation in Baghdad following a sharp drop in insurgent attacks in the capital, a military spokesman said.

Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi, Iraqi spokesman for the nine-month-old Baghdad security plan, said the decline in violence would allow the government to reopen 10 roads this month that had been closed for security reasons.

"This will help reduce traffic jams and citizens will feel life returning to normal," Moussawi said in an interview with Iraqi state television that was aired around midnight on Sunday.

Asked when the Baghdad offensive, called Operation Imposing Law, would come to an end, Moussawi said: "God willing, soon."

Moussawi did not suggest that would mark an end to joint military offensives in Baghdad.

Declaring an end to Operation Imposing Law would acknowledge that security has improved but would be largely symbolic, as tens of thousands of U.S. and Iraqi troops are likely to remain in the capital.

Iraq launched Operation Imposing Law in mid-February in a last-ditch attempt to halt the country's slide into civil war.

U.S. President George W. Bush sent an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq to beef up the Iraqi government's own forces, with most of the additional American troops deployed in and around Baghdad.

When the offensive began, Iraq was gripped by dozens of bombing and shooting attacks nearly every day. Since American reinforcements were fully deployed in the middle of the year, attacks have fallen sharply.

Moussawi said the Baghdad Sunni district of Adhamiya, once one of the most violent in the capital, recorded 29 insurgent attacks in September, down from a peak of 150 in April.

In the city centre, attacks in September fell to 18 from their highest monthly figure of 187, while in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, attacks dropped to four in September from a peak of 70. Moussawi did not say which months had seen the most attacks in the latter two cases.

SUSTAINABLE TREND

On Sunday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the drop in violence was a sign sectarian bloodshed in Baghdad was ending.

Last week, the U.S. military commander for Baghdad, Major-General Joseph Fil, said the reduction in violence represented a sustainable trend that would allow fewer U.S. troops to protect the Iraqi capital.

Some American units will leave Baghdad under a plan endorsed by Bush in September that will see U.S. troop levels in Iraq fall by 20,000-30,000 by mid-2008 from about 170,000 at present.

The drop in violence has surprised many Iraqis, who were used to the daily boom of explosions across the city.

But while violence has declined, movement toward political reconciliation at the national level between majority Shiite and minority Sunni Arabs has been slow.

Parliament has yet to pass key laws that Washington believes will help heal sectarian divisions.

And Maliki's cabinet is now largely made up of Shiites and Kurds after the main Sunni Arab bloc quit in August. The Accordance Front has refused to return, saying it had been marginalised from decision making.

PUKmedia :: English - Iraq Hopes to End Baghdad Security Plan Soon

Bulgaria to Cancel Part of Iraqi Debt

Bulgaria has agreed to reduce the more than one billion dollars of debt Iraq owes it by 360 million dollars (245 million euros) including interest, Bulgaria's Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski said in Sofia Sunday.

Iraq owes the Eastern European country a total of 1.86 billion dollars in debt racked up during the years of Bulgarian communism up to 1989.

Bulgaria was part of the US-led coalition that toppled the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003.

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