Kurdish officials warned yesterday that the unity of Iraq could be at stake if the country’s permanent constitution fails to enshrine Kurdish demands for a federal state. “If Iraq is not federal and democratic, then unity cannot be built,” Omar Fattah, the prime minister of the Kurdish regional government in Sulaim-aniya, told the Guardian. “The Kurds’ status in the constitution will be absolutely crucial to our decades-long struggle for self-determination,” said Mr Fattah, who filled the post left vacant by Barham Salih, Iraq’s new deputy prime minister. Mr Fattah’s comments came as Iraq’s Kurds, who have benefited from 13 years of de facto self-rule, greeted Monday’s transfer of sovereignty in Baghdad with suspicion. “This is the only bit of Iraq that works, and that is because we are different,” said another Kurdish official. “On paper we may be part of the country, but we have our own language, our own government, and look after our own security. What has changed with the transfer? The real battle lies ahead over our permanent status.”Full Story
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