Turkey Gives Up on Unified Iraq

(Daily Beast) Thomas Seibert - Ankara has been keen to preserve Iraq's territorial unity in order to prevent a Kurdish state from being created, because such a development could promote separatist sentiments among Turkey's own Kurdish minority of about 12 million people. But policymakers are reviewing that position, said Veysel Ayhan, director of the Ankara-based International Middle East Peace Research Center (IMPR). "The federal state [in Iraq] has not brought stability, so we have to discuss a new system, either a confederation or division....Sunnis will not accept to live under Shia rule, and Shiites will not live under Sunnis." Huseyin Celik, spokesman for Prime Minister Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), said, "It has become clear for us that Iraq has practically become divided into three parts."


2014-06-23 00:00:00

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