Kurds alarmed by SOFA

No need for the Amer­i­can to cel­e­brate this “Nego­tia­tors agree on US secu­rity pact draft” yet, as I said yes­ter­day: This is a rou­tine procedure.

The United Iraqi Alliance’s MP Al-Bayati explains here on Al-Mada that there will be more nego­ti­a­tions with the Amer­i­cans after this approval to clar­ify more arti­cles in the agreement.

But you need to see this development:

The whole time, Kurds were the only polit­i­cal bloc sup­ported the approval of the secu­rity agree­ment. Not any­more, Kur­dish MP Mah­mud Oth­man said:

I don’t sup­port the sign­ing of the agree­ment … it will strengthen the Iraqi gov­ern­ment … The U.S. forces will with­draw from the coun­try .…There no ref­er­ence to the pro­tec­tion of the Kur­dis­tan region.

Oth­man said that there are two arti­cles, Iraq gov­ern­ment can use against the Kurds:

- The Iraqi gov­ern­ment has the right to sign secu­rity agree­ments with neigh­bor­ing coun­tries. His­tory tells that all treaties and secu­rity agree­ments signed by Iraq with neigh­bor­ing coun­tries were at the expense of the Kur­dish people.

- The right of the Iraqi gov­ern­ment to use force against inter­nal rebel­lions, and this too could be inter­preted in many ways, it did not iden­tify the rebel­lions, is it al-Qaeda or rem­nants of the Baath. It is pos­si­ble that Iraq will use this arti­cle against us.

An arti­cle pub­lished Kuwaiti news­pa­per Al-Qabas

Maliki wishes to sign the secu­rity agree­ment with Wash­ing­ton, to pro­tect his gov­ern­ment – and stay in power for few more years. How­ever, the prime min­is­ter wants at the same time that the agree­ment would be free of items that legit­imizes the occu­pa­tion or turns the U.S. — Iraq rela­tions into man­date. Maliki would pre­fer to share the respon­si­bil­ity of sign­ing the agree­ment with other [polit­i­cal blocs].