Official: No pressure from Biden on Kurds to give up Iraqi presidency

[k98nights]

Official: No pressure from Biden on Kurds to give up Iraqi presidency

Thursday, September 2nd 2010 1:53 PM

Erbil, Sept. 2 (AKnews) – A top Kurdish official dismissed on Thursday the media reports that the U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has pressed Kurds to back off from their demands to occupy the office of Iraq’s president for another term.

Jalal Talabani, Iraq's current president is a Kurd and has been nominated by the Kurdish parties to retain office for another four-year term.

After attending a ceremony in Baghdad to mark the end of U.S. combat mission, Biden arrived in Erbil on Wednesday evening to hold talks with Massoud Barzani, Kurdistan Region's president and other senior Kurdish officials.

Falah Mustafa, Kurdistan’s chief of foreign relations told AKnews that the reports about Biden pressuring the Kurds to compromise over the post of Iraq’s president are “baseless.”

The U.S. vice president landed in Baghdad on Monday amid ongoing talks among Iraqi factions to form the country’s next government.

Kurds have tried to settle the issues and keep away from causing troubles, Mustafa remarked, adding the U.S. vice president has not asked Kurds “to withhold from demanding Iraqi presidency,"

The major disagreements are over the distribution of the top three state positions of prime minister, president and parliament speaker.

The lack of an agreement among Iraqi leaders nearly six months after elections has plunged the country into a political crisis.

Mustafa who attended the meeting between Biden and Barzani said the U.S. vice president asked Barzani to continue his efforts to find a solution for the current crisis.

In an earlier statement to AKnews Dindar Doski, a Kurdish lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament said that any U.S. proposal to the Kurdish factions to give up the post of Iraq’s president would harm the relations between the U.S. and Kurdistan.

He said holding the post of Iraq’s president by a Kurd is among the 19 conditions Kurds have presented to other Iraqi factions as their terms for joining any future government coalition.

"So far we have not been instructed by our leadership to give up the position," Doski said.

Lh/Ms/AKnews

http://www.aknews.com/en/aknews/4/178850/

[gfulcher66]

Thanks for the post...looks good....go gov

[Pat]

Thanks for the post

[TR8Man]

Well, one position seems to be strong.

Thanks for this update