Kurds' independence is growing concern

IRBIL, Iraq — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged restless Iraqi Kurds to seek a closer alliance with other Iraqis as she visited the country's relatively peaceful Kurdish region Friday for talks with regional president Massoud Barzani.

Political and sectarian violence, meanwhile, continued to afflict the rest of Iraq. Kurds condemned Thursday's abduction and slaying of a Kurdish legislator in Baghdad in a likely sectarian attack, and a Danish soldier was killed in southern Iraq. At least 20 Iraqi civilians were reported killed in bombings and shootings, Iraqi officials said.

Rice declared that Iraq's Kurds, a minority who suffered greatly under Saddam Hussein, can find their best security guarantee not from the United States but from the Iraqi constitution.

The efforts of Iraq's new government to reform the country's constitution and better develop a federal system "is one that can, within the framework of a united Iraq, protect and defend the rights of all people," she said in an appearance with Barzani.

Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said Kurds are committed to working within the federal system and will share oil revenues from wells discovered in their region.

Despite the apparent harmony, however, U.S. officials have been concerned about issues swirling in Kurdistan, the least violent and most pro-U.S. segment of Iraq.

Many Kurds want to secede from Iraq, especially with growing sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites further south.

There has been growing tension with Turkey, which has attacked the Kurdish nationalist group, PKK, within Iraqi borders. The other prominent Kurdish leader, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, recently warned that if neighbors, including Turkey, sought to undermine Iraq's sovereignty, the Iraqis might do the same to them.

Kurds also are in conflict with other Iraqis over how to split oil money. Some Kurds believe that revenues from newly developed oilfields should be spent in Kurdistan, not turned over to the federal treasury. The constitution is vague on this point, as on many others.

The fight over oil has exacerbated tensions between Kurds and those Iraqis who favor a strong role for the central government in allocating energy reserves.

Killings such as that Thursday of the Kurdish legislator are often carried out by sectarian death squads with suspected ties to Shiite-dominated security forces. The 1,200-man 8th Brigade of the Interior Ministry was taken off Baghdad's streets this week amid charges of complicity or cooperation with Shiite death squads.

But U.S. Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, the officer in charge of training Iraqi police forces, called the move an "isolated incident" in a briefing with reporters Friday. He said the 8th Brigade had a bad reputation for months, but commended Iraqi police.

"A year ago we had a situation where a police station was attacked, and policemen were running out the back door leaving all the equipment," he said. "That does not occur anymore. Our policemen are more confident."

But Iraqis continue to express doubts about the government and its security forces. "These days the Iraqi people are being slaughtered, and the politicians are only concerned about how to divide Iraq, to make one part for a particular sect," Hareth Ubaidi, of the Sunni Nawaf Mosque in Baghdad, told worshippers gathered for Friday prayers. "All of this is preparing for a sectarian war."