This article is from the source 'nytimes' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/world/middleeast/kerry-kurds-iraq.html

The article has changed 15 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 9 Version 10
Kurdish Leader Warns Kerry of Challenges of ‘New’ Iraq Kerry Implores Kurdish Leader to Join a Government and Not Break Away
(about 4 hours later)
ERBIL, Iraq — The president of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region said Tuesday that Secretary of State John Kerry was confronting an enormous challenge in seeking a multisectarian national government, declaring, “We are facing a new reality and a new Iraq.” ERBIL, Iraq — Secretary of State John Kerry urged the president of Iraq’s Kurdish autonomous region on Tuesday not to seek his own state and instead help form a multisectarian government in Baghdad.
Mr. Kerry’s trip to the Kurdish regional capital, Erbil, was his first as secretary of state, and he met with Masoud Barzani, the Kurdish president, after meetings in Baghdad on Monday with the Shiite prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, and Shiite and Sunni politicians. (The last secretary of state to visit Erbil was Condoleezza Rice, in 2006.) “I am going to bring up the elephant in the room,” Mr. Kerry told the president, Masoud Barzani, who serves as the leader of the Iraqi Kurds, a minority who have long sought independence. “This moment requires statesmanship.”
After Sunni militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria took over the northern city of Mosul two weeks ago and began to move south, Kurdish security forces responded by moving into Kirkuk, a city located in an oil-rich region that has long been divided between Arabs and Kurds. Mr. Kerry’s statements, shared by a senior State Department official who attended the meeting, were prompted by recent comments by Mr. Barzani in an interview with CNN about what he called the need for Kurdish self-determination.
The Kurds’ expansion has put them in a position to demand more autonomy in political talks over Iraq’s future. But it may also complicate the effort to cobble together a new Iraqi government, particularly one that does not include Mr. Maliki, who has long been accused of autocratic tendencies by Iraqi politicians. Mr. Barzani neither withdrew those comments nor said that he would take concrete steps to pursue self-determination during his meeting with Mr. Kerry, who traveled to Iraq on Monday as part of an emergency effort to help deal with a growing Sunni insurgency threatening to partition the country.
American officials have made it clear privately that they are open to the selection of a new prime minister, but it is uncertain whether Sunni and Kurdish political parties can find enough common ground in forming a new government now that Kurdish pesh merga fighters have taken control of Kirkuk. But Mr. Barzani made no secret of his disdain for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, a Shiite. Mr. Barzani also bluntly expressed his sense that the gains by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the Sunni extremist group known as ISIS, had changed the political landscape.
“Ousting Maliki will require the cooperation of all the other blocs,” said Ramzy Mardini, an expert on Iraq and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, an independent think tank. “But Iraq isn’t a place where collective interests reign over parochial ones. The crisis is creating new facts on the ground, and will likely affect how the next government is formed. For example, Sunni and Kurdish cooperation is likely to diminish on government formation after the Kurds grabbed Kirkuk.” “We are facing a new reality and a new Iraq,” Mr. Barzani said at the start of his meeting with Mr. Kerry.
The Kurds are a critical element of the political equation in Iraq. But Mr. Barzani has had a difficult relationship with Mr. Maliki. Mr. Kerry’s trip to the Kurdish regional capital, Erbil, was his first as secretary of state. He met with Mr. Barzani after meetings in Baghdad on Monday with Mr. Maliki and rival Shiite and Sunni politicians. (The last secretary of state to visit Erbil was Condoleezza Rice, in 2006, at the height of the American-led Iraq occupation.)
Kurdish officials have insisted in recent days that the pesh merga expanded their footprint to better defend the Kurds against ISIS extremists, but the oil in the Kurdish region has long been at the center of friction between Baghdad and Erbil. After ISIS members took over the northern city of Mosul two weeks ago and began to move south, Kurdish security forces responded by seizing Kirkuk, a city in an oil-rich region that has long been divided between Arabs and Kurds.
The American goal during Mr. Kerry’s trip has been to insist that the Kurds put aside any thoughts of actual or de facto independence and play an active role in forming a new government. The Kurds’ expansion has put them in a position to demand more autonomy in political talks over Iraq’s future. But it might also complicate the effort to cobble together a new Iraqi government, particularly one that does not include Mr. Maliki, long accused of autocratic tendencies by Iraqi politicians.
“I think there’s a debate going on in the Kurdish region with some people saying, ‘Hey, this is actually pretty good, look what’s happening here,’ and others saying, ‘So we should just kind of build a moat and kind of do our own thing,’ ” said a senior State Department official, speaking anonymously under protocols imposed by the department. “That’s a minority debate.” American officials have made clear privately that they would support the selection of a new prime minister if Mr. Maliki’s rivals would unite behind an alternative. But it is uncertain whether Sunni and Kurdish political parties can find enough common ground in forming a new government now that the Kurdish militia, known as the pesh merga, has taken control of Kirkuk.
“There’s a more majority debate out there that it is in nobody’s interest to have kind of Al Qaeda on steroids on our southern border, and the only way to make sure they are not is to make sure a moderate Sunni component is able to clear these areas,” the State Department official added. “And to do that it’s really essential that the Kurds are an effective and active part of the national political process, including with a very strong Kurdish president.” “Ousting Maliki will require the cooperation of all the other blocs,” said Ramzy Mardini, an expert on Iraq and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based independent research organization.
In recent years, the largely ceremonial post of president in Iraq has been held by a Kurd — the prime minister holds much greater authority — and American officials accept that the position is likely to remain in Kurdish hands. “But Iraq isn’t a place where collective interests reign over parochial ones,” Mr. Mardini said. “The crisis is creating new facts on the ground, and will likely affect how the next government is formed. For example, Sunni and Kurdish cooperation is likely to diminish on government formation after the Kurds grabbed Kirkuk.”
Mr. Kerry, for his part, stuck to basic themes at the start of the meeting. The Obama administration’s previous, frustrated attempt to encourage the formation of a multisectarian government in Iraq has also cast a shadow over the United States’ relationship with the Kurds.
“I look forward to a good conversation today about how the government formation process can produce the broad-based inclusive government that all the Iraqis I have talked to are demanding,” Mr. Kerry said. In 2010, a year before the American military left the country, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. promoted an arrangement to keep Mr. Maliki as prime minister while seeking to give some power to his main political rival, Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite who then headed a bloc that also represented many Sunnis.
The meeting came against the backdrop of reports of new airstrikes on ISIS positions in western Iraq, and scattered violence linked to the Sunni insurgency. In an effort to cement that power-sharing relationship, in November of that year President Obama telephoned Jalal Talabani, a Kurd who serves as Iraq’s president, and asked him to relinquish his post so it could be given to Mr. Allawi. Mr. Talabani turned down the request.
In Qaim, an insurgent-controlled town near the border with Syria, at least one military aircraft attacked on Tuesday at about 9:45 a.m., according to local officials and residents. It was not immediately clear what air force was behind the attack. “The Kurdish decided that it would be kind of humiliating, so they refused it categorically,” Mr. Talabani recalled.
“I was sleeping when a big explosion shook our house,” said Mohammad al-Ani, a resident reached by telephone. “I went directly to the hospital to check if any of my relatives or friends had been killed or wounded but the militants prevented all the people from getting into the hospital.” Mr. Obama later sent a letter to Mr. Barzani reiterating the proposal, and Mr. Barzani also rebuffed it.
Local medical workers said a market and a nearby building had been struck in the attack, and that at least 19 people had been killed and 30 wounded. Apparently mindful of that earlier episode, senior American officials have gone out of their way to say they accept a Kurd should continue to occupy the post of president when a new Iraqi government is formed.
The officials in Qaim said the strikes had been carried out by the Syrian Air Force, although their account could not be immediately confirmed, and a representative of Mr. Maliki’s office disputed the claim. “It’s really essential that the Kurds are an effective and active part of the national political process, including with a very strong Kurdish president,” a second State Department official said.
Dr. Kareem Bardan, a physician who treated the wounded at Qaim hospital, said that initial reports that many women and children had been killed were untrue but that he knew of one woman and three children younger than 15 who were among the dead. American officials also said that Mr. Kerry had not focused in his discussions with Mr. Barzani on the Kurd seizure of Kirkuk and other disputed territory, but rather had concentrated on what they called the need to move quickly to form an inclusive government.
The Syrian side of the border has long been under the control of various rebel groups. In his comments on CNN, Mr. Barzani said that the failures of the Iraqi military against the ISIS advances had led many Kurds, who have long dreamed of their own state, to think about the need for self-determination.
The Iraqi border crossing at Qaim was captured on Friday by ISIS fighters. With the help of Sunni tribes and using weapons captured from the Syrian and Iraqi militaries, including many weapons provided to Iraq’s security forces by the United States, the insurgents have been driving government forces from Sunni-dominated areas in Iraq’s west. “We did not cause the collapse of Iraq,” Mr. Barzani said through an interpreter. “It is others who did. And we cannot remain hostages for the unknown.”
In a separate strike, also attributed by local residents to Syrian aircraft, 24 people were killed and 27 wounded in the western Iraqi town of Rutba when government buildings and a gas station used by militants were hit, witnesses said. One witness, Omar, said most of the victims were civilians. “The time is here for the Kurdistan people to determine their future, and the decision of the people is what we are going to uphold.”
Rutba, recently seized by ISIS, is about 90 miles east of the Jordan border. It would be unusual for Syrian aircraft to strike so deeply inside Iraqi territory, and the claim could not be independently verified. After meeting with Mr. Barzani, Mr. Kerry left on a C-17 aircraft for a meeting in Brussels of NATO foreign ministers, who are grappling with the crisis in Ukraine.
Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman, said in a televised news conference that government forces had regained full control of border crossings near Trebil and Waleed, both of which had been reported by witnesses to have fallen out of government hands. The general said the security forces had received tribal help in reclaiming the border points, although people contacted in both areas contradicted his assessment. The Erbil meeting came against the backdrop of unconfirmed and sometimes conflicting reports of new airstrikes on ISIS positions in western Iraq, possibly from Syria, and scattered violence linked to the Sunni insurgency.
At the border point near Trebil, which is the only legal crossing point to Jordan, an employee of the border service, reached by telephone and speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Iraqi security forces had abandoned the post and no tribal presence was visible. There were unconfirmed reports from local officials and witnesses in the border town of Qaim near Syria and another town, Rutba, 90 miles from the Jordan border — both of them seized by insurgents in recent days — that warplanes from the Syrian Air Force had bombed them, killing 44 people. The reports could not be independently verified.
The employee said some of the civilian border service employees remained at the post. He said that traffic was flowing across the border, and that militants in the area had allowed the staff to continue working. ISIS, the employee said, controls the nearby territory but sent a message indicating that it will not occupy the post, at least for the moment, a move that would cause the Jordanian government to close the other side. Other unconfirmed reports asserted that American forces had started drone strikes on ISIS positions; the reports were denied by Pentagon officials.
The border crossing at Waleed also remained abandoned by Iraqi security forces, according to a resident reached by telephone, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, who said ISIS had allowed Sunni border employees to continue their work but the militants had established a presence at the crossing point. Gen. Qassim Atta, an Iraqi military spokesman, said in a televised news conference that government forces had regained full control of border crossings near Trebil and Waleed, both reported by witnesses to have fallen out of government hands. The general said the security forces had received tribal help in reclaiming the border points, although people contacted in both areas contradicted his assessment.
The militants’ control of border crossing points, both formal and informal, has led to shifts in the fighting and balance of forces in Syria and Iraq alike. At the border point near Trebil, the only legal crossing point to Jordan, an employee of the border service, reached by telephone, said Iraqi security forces had abandoned the post and no tribal presence was visible.
ISIS’s rivals among the antigovernment rebels in Syria said that ISIS had been moving former American military equipment, including armored vehicles, into Syria, and that they feared the ISIS militants would use them to claim territory from more moderate rebel groups in Syria’s north. Elsewhere, Sunni militants ringing the sprawling oil refinery in the northern town of Baiji again claimed to have overrun the complex. An Iraqi officer defending the refinery, reached by telephone, said the claim was false. In Mosul, the ISIS forces that are now governing the city were said by residents to have destroyed six historically significant or religious sites, including statues of a famous Muslim historian, poet and musician. In southern Kirkuk, the police said unidentified gunmen killed the Turkmen head of a local City Council and wounded his driver. The motive for that attack was unclear.
They also said ISIS’s success in Iraq had spread fear among its rivals, some of whom are pledging allegiance to ISIS to avoid fighting it. They said the group had established a logistics corridor from the battlefields in Iraq and was evacuating wounded fighters to Raqqa, Syria, for treatment at the general hospital there, which has been under ISIS control since last year. In Washington, the Pentagon said the first team of American military personnel had deployed to Iraq, part of the operations that President Obama announced last week to help the Iraqi government combat the Sunni militants.
Elsewhere in Iraq, Sunni militants ringing the sprawling oil refinery in Baiji again claimed to have overrun the complex and taken control.
An Iraqi officer defending the refinery, reached by telephone, said the claim was false. He said the militants had advanced deeper into the complex but the battle had not ended.
“Everything is still under control,” said the officer, Brig. Gen. Arras Abdul Qadir. “The militants took over the towers around the external fence, but they lost a lot of people doing it.”
In Mosul, the ISIS forces that are now governing the city with their version of strict Islamic law were said by residents to have destroyed six historically significant or religious sites, including statues of a famous Muslim historian, poet and musician. In southern Kirkuk, the police said unidentified gunmen killed the Turkmen head of a local city council and wounded his driver. The motive for that attack was unclear.
In Washington, the Pentagon said the first team of American military personnel had deployed to Iraq, part of the operations that President Obama announced last week to help the Iraqi government combat the Sunni insurgency.
Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said the first team included 90 special operations and technical advisers sent to Baghdad, joined by 40 American advisers who were already in Iraq, assigned to the United States Embassy. An additional 170 advisers were expected to travel to Iraq later.Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said the first team included 90 special operations and technical advisers sent to Baghdad, joined by 40 American advisers who were already in Iraq, assigned to the United States Embassy. An additional 170 advisers were expected to travel to Iraq later.
Admiral Kirby, reiterating Mr. Obama’s pledge, maintained that the role of the advisers would be to assess and assist Iraqi troops, not engage in any combat themselves.Admiral Kirby, reiterating Mr. Obama’s pledge, maintained that the role of the advisers would be to assess and assist Iraqi troops, not engage in any combat themselves.