Kurdish parties oppose the four-way Kurdish-Shiite alliance

Aug 17, 2007, 10:39 GMT

Sulaimaniya, Iraq - Leaders Kurdish parties said Friday they opposed the formation of a four-way alliance of Kurdish and Shiite parties which excluded the Sunnis.

In statements to the Kurdish al-Jarida newspaper, the two Kurdish leaders Iraqi President and head Patriotic Union of kurdistan (PUK) Jalal Talbani and head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Masoud Barazani were criticised for joining a new alliance without getting back to the members of Council of Political Parties of Kurdistan.

'The two major Kurdish parties had no right to take critical decisions on behalf of the Kurdish people without conferring with Kurdistan's political parties' high councils,' head of Kurdistan Islamic Union, Salah ad-Din Muhammad Bahaa al-Din, said.

Kurdistan Communist Party leader Kamal Shaker considered the new alliance as a continuation of the policy of dividing the leadership in Iraq, which he charged would lead Iraq into a sectarian war.

Islamic Group of Kurdistan (IGK) head Ali Bapir said that the Council of Political Parties of Kurdistan did not agree that the KDP and the PUK should establish a moderate alliance without the Sunnis' participation.

'Shiite parties failed in managing the government since late Saddam Hussein was overthrown,' Bapir noted. 'A Kurdish-Shiite alliance means that Kurds share all the mistakes and problems occurring in the past years.'

On Thursday, the heads of the main Shiite and Kurdish parties said they had agreed on the formation of a 'front of moderate forces.'

However, this 'front' consisted only of the four parties which have already been working closely together since the US invasion in spring 2003 - the Kurdish parties KDP and PUK, the Dawa Party and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC).

Radical Shiites, Sunnis and secular forces were not involved.