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Dear all Further to Part III of my magnum opus (about Kurdistan, security guarantees, and the sanctions), I have finally got around to typing up some of my notes from Denis Halliday's talk to the June anti-sanctions conference in London. We invited Denis to report on his recent trip to Iraqi Kurdistan (earlier in the month) and he described the positions of the Kurdish leaderships and the Baghdad government. My notes may not be completely accurate but they say: Kurdish leaders wanted a) a multiparty democratic system in Iraq as a whole b) a guaranteed proportion of Iraqi oil revenues (13 per as presently) c) security guarantees (not specified by DH or asked about at the conference for some reason) d) a federal system in all Iraq The GOI said a) the multiparty system question can be discussed after the war is over (again, not specified or clarified by questions!) b) on security, the Kurdish borders can be guarded by Kurdish pershmerga (guerrillas) c) revenues would be coming from taxes, but there would be no commitment to any particular proportion of oil revenues - revenues would be on a per capita basis d) there is no capacity for federalism in most of the country Denis suggested to government advisors in Baghdad that perhaps the autonomy/federalism conundrum could be transcended by talking about 'devolution' as in the UK. Denis made it clear to the authorities in Baghdad that while they saw the Kurdish crisis as a domestic issue, others saw it as an international issue. The Kurdish agenda is somewhat wider than Alexander Sternberg was suggesting, then, and explicitly has ramifications for the rest of the country (though this very broadness may indicate these elements are in part at least gambits in negotiation). Cheers Mil Milan Rai Joint Coordinator, Voices in the Wilderness UK milanrai@btinternet.com 29 Gensing Road, St Leonards on Sea East Sussex UK TN38 0HE Phone/fax 0845 458 9571 local rate within UK Phone/fax 44 1424 428 792 from outside UK Pager 07623 746 462 Voices website http://viwuk.freeserve.co.uk -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://www.casi.org.uk