By Alastair Macdonald
Reuters, 04 September 2006
BAGHDAD, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Iraq may get a new flag to replace one rejected by ethnic Kurds as a symbol of oppression under Saddam Hussein, the government said on Monday, hoping to defuse a nasty row that provoked threats of Kurdish secession.
It could be brought up as early as Tuesday in parliament.
After the Kurdish regional leader banned the national flag and the prime minister hit back bluntly, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said he understood the Kurds' position and that designing a new flag now had greater priority.
"Due to such issues, there will be certain priorities in order to advance approving a new flag," he told Reuters.
"It was not urgent but now it is more urgent."
A Kurdish member of the Baghdad parliament said his party aimed to introduce a motion at Tuesday's first session since the summer recess calling for a new flag and a new national anthem.
Iraq's president, also a Kurd, appeared to throw his weight behind a change, describing the present one as "the Saddamist flag, stained with the blood of hundreds of thousands".
Dabbagh defended the statement on Sunday by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite Arab, that said only the national tricolour must be flown and implied the Kurdish regional flag, ubiquitous in the northern mountains, had no official standing.
"But," he said, "We understand the sensitivity of the Kurdistan people, that they have been killed under this flag."
Kurdish President Massoud Barzani banned flying the Iraqi flag in the region, home to 5 million of Iraq's 26 million people, because of its association with Saddam's Baathist rule and the deaths of many thousands in the Anfal attacks of 1988.
"This is the flag of the Baath and Anfal, of chemical attacks and mass graves," Barzani said, repeating in strong terms his warning that Kurds might one day choose independence.
PARLIAMENT'S CALL
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani defended Barzani, long his bitter rival, and appeared to back a new design by parliament:
"The Iraqi flag, which will be ratified by the Iraqi parliament according to the constitution, will be a sacred flag, venerated, accepted by everyone, raised and fluttering over the heads of Iraqis and on the peaks of the Kurdistan mountains."
Nawzat Saleh Rifaat, a member of parliament from Talabani's party, told Reuters: "We demand the flag be changed. We are seeking to change it so that all Iraqi people would be united.
"This does not mean we want to secede. At the first session of parliament, we will ask for a new flag and national anthem."
Some other members of parliament voiced their support.
The red, white and black horizontal tricolour with a line of three green stars in the middle is a Baathist design adopted after a 1963 coup and modelled after that of other Arab states.
It replaced a design that featured a sun motif representing the Kurds. After invading Kuwait in 1990, Saddam added the words "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest) in his own hand. Since he fell, new flags feature the words in a neutral printed typography.
Under the U.S. occupation authority, a radical 2004 design, white with blue and yellow stripes and a crescent moon, was never implemented. Some said it reminded them of Israel's flag.
Insubstantial though it may be, the symbolism of the dispute exposes friction between Arabs and Kurds that, along with the rift between Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs, threatens Iraq's unity.
(Additional reporting by Hiba Moussa and Sherko Raouf)
Citation: Alastair Macdonald. "Iraq govt mulls new flag after Kurdish threats," Reuters, 04 September 2006.
Original URL: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO456610.htm
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