Thread: Archive Latest News - Dinar Think Tank - 27/08/08 - 15/01/09

Council of Ministers submitted new amendments to the Security Agreement with Washington

Said Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Iraq's minister told the Iraqi Council of Ministers introduced amendments to draft a new Security Agreement to be signed between Iraq and the United States. "

Dhiab said in an interview with "Uzmatik" on Wednesday, the Iraqi Council of Ministers awaiting a response from the American side of the amendments demanded by the new Iraqi government on certain paragraphs in the Security Agreement."

Dhiab said that "the Iraqi cabinet would draft the agreement after receiving security from the American side to bring them to the Iraqi parliament, for a final decision," expected "and hold a referendum on the Convention, the existence of demands by several political blocs need to allow a referendum Iraqi citizens a say in Security Agreement."

The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research of Iraq that "the current security draft agreement contains many positive aspects, but the substantive immunity enjoyed by the American soldier and inspection of mail sent to the American forces are the most important issues that hamper the reaching of an agreement between Baghdad and Washington."

He Dhiab that the "Security Agreement serve the Iraqi side significantly in many areas," saying it "contains important aspects in the field of cultural cooperation between Iraq and the United States, the twinning of universities in Iraq, American and long-term American support for higher education and scientific research In Iraq, as well as the training of Iraqi professors in America, and lectures by university professors Americans in Iraq. "

The Security Agreement with Washington determine the status of U.S. forces in Iraq after the United Nations mandate expires at the end of 2008. It is still a matter of different reactions among the political blocs and the Iraqi parliament because of the reluctance of some political forces in the Declaration of approval, and other opposition forces to the Convention in toto Kalttiar Sadr organized demonstrations opposed to it. The United States announced it had conducted amendments to the Convention, but the Iraqi political forces described as "minor".

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

MPs declare support for constitutional amendments to expand the mandate of the Center

The figures on the parliamentary support to the invitation of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to make amendments to the Constitution gives a wider role for the central government.

Bahaa al-Araji confirmed that the observations made by the Prime Minister at the elite and competency in Baghdad recently and realistic and should be implemented in practical terms it will help the country's unity. Rashid also expressed his deputy Aezzoai support for Mr. Maliki's demand for changes to the Constitution, and it was not justification for the masses to some of these amendments as are in the interest of the Iraqi people.

With Rep. Abdul al-Mutlaq It can not remain without having to amend the constitution, stressing that all the tribes of Iraq by pulling the Prime Minister of the boards of substantive support and constitutional amendments.

http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=e...pB3M8nP3-ZQ-3A

Director of the Rafidain Bank in Karbala announced the imminent launch of car loan for the purchase of taxis and the introduction of smart card system

Director of the Rafidain Bank on the direction of the government to expand in the banking system through the smart card and the Global System for the Prevention of arriving on the banks and increase the momentum, adding that the destruction of the Iraqi bank, linking global banks to facilitate the transfer of funds from the state of Iraqi banks to international banks very quickly.

And Abdel-Hussein Abdel Azim al-Yasiri smart card system introduced recently will be launched, and it must be in each of the provinces of Babylon, Karbala and Najaf and Diwaniya.

Yasiri also revealed close the application system has been applied in the province of Najaf and advanced banks to the people of Najaf to buy taxis sophisticated and modern designs, pointing out that Karbala province will soon implement this system which is linked taxis elaborate system distinguishes them from the rest of the other cars.

Yasiri said Huda told that the main aim of the smart card system is to serve retirees who retired more than a million who criticized salary from the Rafidain Bank, as well as the network covered by social welfare, adding that next year will start working smart card system and a comprehensive system of payments.

http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=e...Zycqk0mJopwyKg

15 daily hours of power by mid next year – PM

The Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki on Thursday said that the mid part of next year would witness an increase in power production, to reach 3,000 to 4,000 Megawatts, to provide electricity for 15 hours of daily duration, according to a release issued by al-Maliki’s office.

“Contracts were also signed with big international companies to gain 12,000 Megawatts,” said the release that was received by Aswat al-Iraq.

“The Council of Ministers believes that Electricity Ministry’s performance has been exceptional, and the cabinet will work to provide all the ministry’s needs,” the release quoted al-Maliki.

15 daily hours of power by mid next year ? PM : Aswat Al Iraq

Higher demand for dollar in daily auction

Demand for the dollar went up at the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) auction on Thursday, registering $ 134.070 million compared to $133 million in the previous session.

“The demand hit $37.570 million in cash, covered by the bank at an exchange rate of 1,181 Iraqi dinars and $96.500 million in foreign transfers outside the country covered by the bank at an exchange rate of 1,178 Iraqi dinars per dollar.

None of the 14 banks that participated in today’s sessions offered to sell dollars.

The Central Bank of Iraq runs a daily auction from Sunday to Thursday.

Higher demand for dollar in daily auction : Aswat Al Iraq

Shell ready to invest in the oil price to $ 50 a barrel

Said Jeroen van der Veer, chief ****utive of Royal Dutch Shell today, Thursday, investment in oil projects can be tempting at the price of 50 dollars a barrel if were not taxes and duties on oil production are very high.

The ****utives and officials of the oil producing countries previously said that the stability of the oil price at about $ 80 a barrel to justify the necessary investment in new projects.

The Fair, told reporters in Istanbul that the company Anglo-Dutch oil giant was very interested in Iraqi oil contracts expected to be signed next year and said that the company is in talks with a number of companies about the possibility of formation of the Consortium.

http://66.102.9.104/translate_c?hl=e...aW_Pi5jsNZ5Kbw

Govt security agreement to vote next week & information on intensive meetings between political leaders

With consider U.S. President-elect Barak Obama advisers with the reduction of U.S. forces in Iraq by withdrawing about 100 thousand troops, said Finance Minister Bayan Jabr said the government will vote

The security agreement to be signed with the United States next week.

Zubaidi said: cabinet to vote on the draft agreement next Saturday or Sunday, pointing to the existence of the tripartite meetings under way.

He said in a statement quoted by Agence France-Presse, "We have received a final draft from Washington and currently under discussion between the U.S. and the Iraqi prime minister's office," adding that "Ministers agreed to vote yes or no." Revealed his leadership in the Kurdish Alliance Mahmoud Othman told " Morning, "the tendency to present the draft agreement on the ****utive Boards of the political and national security. Uthman said:" The government does not want to bear alone the responsibility to ratify the agreement, it is a sensitive issue, which is now trying to obtain political and national consensus before sending them to the parliament. "

The President of the United Alliance bloc in the House of Representatives, Dr. Ali al-Adeeb, have outweighed the assignment of the final draft agreement to the parliament to take a stand either of them rejected Awalqubol, stressing the "morning," government approval "in part" on the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The center of the photo, said Dan Bivefr senior adviser to President-elect Barack Obama told a news briefing yesterday that the latter will meet with senior advisers and the U.S. military command to draw a map of troop reductions in Iraq in light of pace and the extent permitted by the circumstances in the region.

The newspaper USA Today the U.S. (interpretation morning), Richard Dankiza one of the officials in a foreign policy adviser to Obama, said that U.S. troops could remain in Iraq entitled "a force for consultation and training" an estimated 55-thousand troops after the withdrawal of the country, no Withdrawal of some 100 thousand troops from Iraq.

http://translate.google.co.uk/transl...hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Iraq to vote on US pact at weekend: minister

The Iraqi cabinet will vote on a controversial military pact to govern the presence of US troops in the country on either Saturday or Sunday, Iraq's finance minister said.

"We received the last draft from the Americans and now it is being discussed between the American and the Iraqi committees and the prime minister's office," Baqer Jabr Solagh told AFP on Wednesday.

"The cabinet will meet (Saturday or Sunday) to see the last draft and then the cabinet will vote ... They have to vote, yes or no."

Baghdad and Washington have been racing to agree on a pact ahead of the December 31 expiry of the UN mandate governing the presence of the 140,000 US troops currently stationed in the country.

The most recent draft stipulates that American forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 2009 and from the country by the end of 2011, and contains amendments made by the Americans in response to Iraqi demands made last month.

"The deliberations are continuing in the cabinet in order to ascertain the scope of the amendments that have been added in order to reach a clear agreement and to see if it is acceptable to parliament," Safaldin al-Safi said. "The American response contained many positive elements, but at the same time it contained clauses that require more discussion," the head of Iraq's parliamentary affairs committee said in a statement Tuesday.

Should the cabinet vote to accept the agreement it would then go to parliament for final approval.

The signing of the so-called Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) has been repeatedly delayed despite several months of negotiations, and the draft agreement has drawn fire from leaders of Iraq's majority Shiite community.

On October 28 the cabinet met to decide on the agreement but instead asked Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to demand further changes from Washington.

National security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said last week Iraq had proposed "110 changes" and received "responses," including an agreement to remove a clause which could have allowed US troops to remain after 2011.

The United States has insisted that the current draft is the final text and on Tuesday the embassy declined to say whether more talks were in the offing.

The Baghdad edition of the London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that the Americans have agreed to three of five changes proposed by Iraq, including allowing Iraqis to inspect incoming and outgoing US parcels.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki assured Arab countries in a letter on Monday that the agreement had met Iraq's demand that its territory not be used as a launch pad for any attacks on neighbouring countries.

US negotiators were however reluctant to further ease the immunity offered to soldiers, after already agreeing to allow Iraq to prosecute American troops and civilians if they commit serious crimes outside their bases when off-duty.

Iraq wants to be able to prosecute them for crimes conducted on their bases as well.

A failure to agree on the current draft would raise a new set of thorny problems for both Washington and Baghdad, starting with the need to request a new mandate from the UN Security Council.

http://pukmedia.com/english/index.ph...=7555&Itemid=1

Turkish President expresses concern over Iraq’s future

Turkish President Abdullah Gül has said he was concerned about the future of Iraq.

In a meeting with Saad Bazzaz, editor-in-chief of Azzaman, Gül made it clear that Ankara’s top priority is to see Iraq a unified and stable country.

The meeting is Gül’s first with Bazzaz who also heads the Independent Iraqi Information Board which besides Azzaman runs a S.a.t.e.llite T.e.l.e.vision and other media publications.

“The Turkish President is deeply concerned about the unity and stability of Iraq,” Bazzaz told reporters following the meeting.

On the thorny issue of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, Bazzaz said: “Iraq is a miniature of the Middle East and Kirkuk in turn is a miniature of Iraq. Therefore, the city should not be a reason for problems whose consequences and outcomes are not known.”

Kurds are working hard to annex the city to their semi-independent enclave in northern Iraq but are facing strong resistance from other ethnic minorities in the city such as Arabs and Turkmen.

Even constitutionally, the Kurds have tough hurdles to overcome as the country’s legislature is not likely to pass any resolution that will give them the upper hand in the strategic city.

Meantime, Ankara has made it clear that it will not allow Iraqi Kurds spread their control over Kirkuk where a sizeable ethnic Turkish community lives.

But Bazzaz told reporters the Turkish president was “pleased” with latest developments with regard to Kirkuk.

Nonetheless, Bazzaz said Gül reaffirmed to him that his country was keen to deal and have good relations with the various and disparate Iraqi ethnic and political factions.

Despite mounting violence and insecurity, Bazzaz said Gül was optimistic about Iraq’s future “and the vibrant potential of its people and its economic resources which could contribute to the creation of a stable regional environment.”

http://www.azzaman.com/english/index...11-12\kurd.htm

Kurdistan Is a Model for Iraq
Our path to a secular, federal democracy is inspired by the U.S.

Iraq's Kurds have consistently been America's closest allies in Iraq. Our Peshmerga forces fought alongside the U.S. military to liberate the country, suffering more casualties than any other U.S. ally.

And while some Iraqi politicians have challenged the U.S.-Iraq security agreement, Iraq's Kurdish leaders have endorsed the pact as essential for U.S. combat troops to continue fighting terrorists in Iraq.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is committed to a federal, democratic Iraq that is at peace with its neighbors.

We have benefited enormously from the service and sacrifices of America's armed forces and their families, and we are deeply grateful. We are also proud to have shared in such sacrifices; my brother was among those severely wounded during the liberation of Iraq.

Last year, following a U.S. request, we deployed Kurdish troops to Baghdad. These troops played a decisive role in the success of the surge. Last month I once again visited Baghdad to meet with the leadership of the federal government. We stressed our commitment to developing an Iraqi state that abides by its constitution and that is based upon a federal model with clearly delineated powers for its regions.

In spite of all this, some commentators now suggest that the Kurds are causing problems by insisting on territorial demands and proceeding with the development of Kurdistan's oil resources. These allegations are troubling. We are proceeding entirely in accord with the Iraqi constitution, implementing provisions that were brokered by the U.S.

In the constitutional negotiations that took place in the summer of 2005, two issues were critical to us: first, that the Kurdistan Region has the right to develop the oil on its territory, and second, that there be a fair process to determine the administrative borders of Iraq's Kurdistan Region -- thus resolving once and for all the issue of "disputed" territories.

Unfortunately, ever since the discovery of oil in Iraq in the 1920s, successive Iraqi governments have sought to keep oil out of Kurdish hands, blocking exploration and development of fields in Kurdistan. Saddam Hussein's government went even further, using Iraqi oil revenues to finance the military campaigns that destroyed more than 4,500 Kurdish villages and to pay for the poison gas used to kill thousands of Kurdish civilians.

The Kurdish leadership agreed to a U.S.-sponsored compromise in 2005 in which the central government would have the authority to manage existing oil fields, but new fields would fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the regions. Since then, the KRG has taken the lead with Baghdad in negotiations on a hydrocarbon law that is faithful to Iraq's constitution and is conducive to modernizing Iraq's oil infrastructure and substantially increasing its oil production.

We have awarded contracts for foreign oil companies (including some American ones) to explore our territory. In so doing, Kurdistan is not threatening the unity of Iraq. It is simply implementing the constitution.

The "disputed territories" have a tragic history. Since the 1950s, Iraqi regimes encouraged Arabs to settle in Kirkuk and other predominantly Kurdish and Turkmen areas. Saddam Hussein accelerated this process by engaging in ethnic cleansing, expelling or killing Kurds and Turkmen, or by requiring nationality corrections (in which non-Arabs are forced to declare themselves to be Arabs) and by moving Arabs into Kurdish homes.

The dispute between Baghdad and the Kurds over Kirkuk has lasted more than 80 years and has often been violent. All sides have now agreed to a formula to resolve the problem, to bring justice to Kirkuk, and to correct the crimes against Kurds committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. Iraq's constitution requires that a referendum be held in disputed territories to determine if their populations want to join the Kurdistan Region. Conducting a plebiscite is not easy, but it is preferable to another 80 years of conflict.

If the pro-Kurdistan side should lose the referendum in Kirkuk, I promise that Kurdistan will respect that result. And if they win, I promise that we will do everything in our power to ensure outsized representation of Kirkuk's Turkmen, Arabs and Christians both on the local level and in the parliament and government of the Kurdistan Region.

Regional stability cannot come from resolving internal disputes alone. That is why expanding and deepening our ties with Turkey is my top priority.

My meeting last month in Baghdad with the Turkish special envoy to Iraq was a historic and positive development. There should be further direct contacts between the KRG and Turkey, as well as multilateral contacts that involve the U.S. We are eager to work with Turkey to seek increased peace and prosperity in the region.

I am proud that the Kurdistan Region is both a model and gateway for the rest of Iraq. Our difficult path to a secular, federal democracy is very much inspired by the U.S. And so we look forward to working with the Obama-Biden administration to support and defend our hard-fought successes in Iraq, and to remain proud of what the Kurdistan region is today: a thriving civil society in the heart of the Middle East. When we insist on strict compliance with our country's constitution, we are only following America's great example.

Mr. Barzani is the president of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1226...googlenews_wsj