Kurdish leader denies reports of party disputes

Feb 15, 2009, 14:32 GMT

Baghdad - Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader played down Sunday reports on disputes between party members, saying minor disagreements were being exaggerated by the media.

Media reports said on Saturday that the vice president of the Kurdistan Regional Government Khosrat Rasul, who is also a PUK member, resigned with four other high-ranking officials amid a party dispute.

Reports said that the party's political office HAD split into two groups, one demanding the dismissal of former deputy secretary general Nashrawan Mustafa and another, under Rasul, wanting Mustafa to stay.

PUK leader Fouad Massoum told the London-based al-Sharq al-Awssat newspaper that neither Rasul nor any leader resigned.

'How could brother Khosrat cause a dispute or a struggle with the with party's secretary general when he is a prominent leader in the union and very close to (Iraqi President) Jalal Talabani?' Massoum asked.

Iraq's northern Kurdistan became semi-autonomous from the rest of the country after the US-led Gulf War in 1991. The northern region was divided between two parties, the PUK under current Iraqi President Talabani and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) under Massoud Barzani.

Disputes between the two parties were settled after the US toppled former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The two parties united to give Kurdistan more influence in Iraq.

Provincial elections took place in Iraq last month in all regions except for Kirkuk and the three northern provinces of Kurdistan, which will have their elections in May. Any dispute within Kurdistan threatens the stability of the semi-autonomous region.

In separate development Sunday, a bomb struck al-Sadr city, killing one person and injuring another 18, al-Arabiya satellite television channel reported. Al-Sadr city, named after radical Shiite Cleric Mouqtada al-Sadr, is a Baghdad suburb.

In the northern Mosul province, gunmen attacked a police patrol in the Mansouria district, killing two policemen and injuring another two, while a civilian was killed and three were injured when a bomb exploded near their car in Mosul's Mindala district. Mosul is located some 400 kilometres north of Baghdad.

Security has significantly increased in Iraq as security forces pacified the majority of Iraq's provinces. However, militant groups targeting citizens and car bombs targeting security forces in Iraq are still common in the country.