Mosul, Iraq - Athil al-Najifi, the Arab nationalist governor
of Iraq's restive Nineveh province, is striking an uncompromising
tone on thorny relations with Kurds in the provincial capital, Mosul.
In an exclusive interview with the German Press Agency dpa, al-
Najifi, who led the Sunni Hadba Coalition to victory in January's
provincial council elections on a platform of regaining control from
Kurdish parties, said he expected Iraqi Kurdish parties 'to come to
grips with the changed situation' after his coalition's victory and
the US withdrawal from the city.
'The Kurds have no doubt that the situation in Mosul ... has
changed,' al-Najifi told dpa Saturday, 10 days before the scheduled
withdrawal. 'They will come to grips with the changed situation.
'I expect that the Kurds will withdraw from the city and there
will be a single security force in the city, with not a single Kurd
or (Kurdish) Peshmerga (militiaman) in it,' he said. 'Iraqi security
forces will be able to control the city without the need for any
other force.'
Nineveh is home to a patchwork of religious and ethnic minorities,
but is primarily divided between Kurds, especially in the north and
east of the province, and Sunni Arabs, especially in the south and
west of the province.
The province, and Mosul in particular, remain among the most
dangerous areas in Iraq. Despite successive security pushes that
police say have netted hundreds of suspected insurgents, armed groups
continue to launch near-daily attacks, with deadly effect.
On Saturday, an off-duty police officer and his mother were gunned
down in a market in the west of Mosul. In the east of the city, an
ethnic Kurdish woman was fatally shot in the street. Her sister, who
had been walking next to her, was seriously wounded, police said.
When, as recently as March, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
was still saying that he might ask US forces to remain in Iraq's most
dangerous urban areas, Kurdish politicians in Mosul called for the
continued presence of US soldiers in Mosul.
'It is necessary for US forces to stay in Nineveh, since the
greatest challenge Iraqi security forces face is in Mosul,' Khasro
Goran, deputy governor of Nineveh and the leader of the Kurdish
Fraternal List, told dpa at the time.
Since then, al-Maliki's government has indicated that it expects
US soldiers' withdrawal from Iraqi cities to be complete. On
Saturday, he hailed that withdrawal as a 'great victory' for Iraq.
Al-Najifi, in the dpa interview, said 'I have had assurances from
Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi that the ministries of
interior and defence will be in charge of the security file in the
city of Mosul after the withdrawal of US troops at the end of the
month.
'In reference to the Peshmergas, he told me that no militias will
be allowed in the city,' he said.
Sunni politicians in the area have accused former Peshmerga
fighters now working for the Kurdish secret police of fomenting
strife in the province in a bid to get US forces, seen as more
sympathetic to the Kurds, to stay.
Kurdish politicians counter that the Baath Party continues to
operate in Mosul - albeit wearing 'different masks,' as member of
parliament Saadi al-Barazanji recently put it in an interview with
USA
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