NY Times: Governing Council Parties Are Said to Back Autonomy for Kurds

[La_Serpiente]

Governing Council Parties Are Said to Back Broad Autonomy for Kurds

KIRKUK, Iraq, Jan. 9 — The major political parties of the Iraqi Governing Council agreed at a meeting with Kurdish leaders on Thursday evening and Friday morning that the northern Kurdish region should keep much of the autonomy that it has held for the last 12 years, a senior Kurdish official said.

That includes allowing the region to remain together as one political body in a federalist system rather than dividing it up into several provinces, as some American officials had proposed, said the Kurdish official, Barham Salih, prime minister of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two governing political parties in the Kurdish area.

Support of Governing Council members for broad Kurdish autonomy conflicts with the plans of the Bush administration, which is seeking to force Kurdish leaders to compromise on their demands for autonomous powers under the new government. L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator in Iraq, has met twice with Kurdish leaders, including Mr. Salih, in the last eight days to ask them to withdraw some requests, only to be rebuffed.

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Governing Council Parties Are Said to Back Broad Autonomy for Kurds

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