Pubdate: Mon, 20 Mar 2006
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2006 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Author: Iason Athanasiadis, Special to the Star
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
	

KURDS BLAME IRANIANS FOR DRUGS AND MORE

Turkey No Longer the Only Neighbour That Worries Iraq's Autonomous
North

His desk is cluttered with a pair of Motorola walkie-talkies, a
handgun and several thousand dollars' worth of confiscated opium and
hashish. Despite the impressive haul of drugs seized near the Iranian
border, the Kurdish counter-narcotics official is not happy.

"Drugs are a new phenomenon in our society," he says. "Iran is trying
to funnel the drug into Kurdistan and spread it among us. They're
trying to weaken our society in every possible way, so as to
discourage us from forming our own state."

Such anti-Iranian accusations are increasingly widespread in northern
Iraq, where a Kurdish majority is anxious to claim
independence.

Detecting malign Iranian influences has become a popular Kurdish
pastime -- especially, for the high-ranking narcotics official, when
it involves the land bridge between the poppy fields and hash
plantations of Afghanistan and users in Kurdistan.

But it's not just drugs.

Some local leaders blamed "Iranian elements" for Thursday's rioting in
Halabja, the Kurdish town that was poison-gassed by the Saddam Hussein
regime in 1988. A monument to the 5,000 Kurds killed in the attack was
destroyed as demonstrators protesting local conditions turned violent
during ceremonies marking the 18th anniversary of the massacre.

Iran's new-found unpopularity comes as Tehran's favoured faction in
Iraq -- the majority Shiites -- seek to form a government despite
Kurdish and Sunni opposition in Baghdad.

Increased clashes between the Iranian army and a Kurdish militia
called Pezhak in Iran's Kordestan province have dismayed the Iraqi
Kurdish leadership. Pezhak is the Iranian militia offshoot of the
separatist Kurdistan Workers Party, which has been battling the
Turkish government in southeast Turkey.

In Baghdad, meanwhile, an unlikely political alliance has been formed
as Iraq's Kurdish president, Jalal Talabani, is speaking out publicly
against Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Shiite former prime minister who has
been re-nominated for the post by the United Iraqi Alliance, a
grouping of mostly Shiite parties that won the December elections.

Talabani has broken with his former Shiite allies to link up with
Sunni politicians in an alliance aimed at depriving al-Jaafari of the
post.

As the horse-trading continues among mostly secular politicians inside
the capital's isolated but increasingly vulnerable Green Zone, the
rest of Iraq tears itself apart in a daily diet of assassinations, car
bombings and mass executions.

By contrast, northern Iraq remains relatively peaceful, with the
exception of Mosul and Kirkuk, troubled cities with mixed Arab and
Kurdish populations.

Fifteen years of autonomy since the 1991 Persian Gulf War have brought
the region some prosperity, allowing the main ruling parties -- the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party
(KDP) -- to decide that amalgamation between them is the best course
of action.

Despite a legacy of factional infighting that culminated in an
intra-Kurdish civil war in 1994, the Kurds are rallying to guarantee
control over their own army and a 2007 referendum to decide the fate
of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

A Kurdish military intelligence operative, speaking on condition of
anonymity, says ordinary Kurds are "not bothered at all" by the daily
atrocities perpetrated in the rest of the country by rival militias.

"They believe that it's what the Sunnis and Shiites had coming to
them. They don't criticize it at all."

In Arbil, the political capital of northern Iraq, Kurdish politicians
are sounding cautious notes about the prospect of independence -- and
the Iranian threat.

"The Iranians have their own policy and it's something very
complicated," says Adnan al-Mufti, speaker of the Kurdish parliament.

"The Iraqi people cannot be used as a card in this game. We cannot be
used as pawns by the region's powers." 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake