News > World Crises >Article
Kurdistan lowers Iraq flag in new autonomy move http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=IBO254485
Sat 2 Sep 2006
ARBIL, Iraq, Sept 2 (Reuters) - The president of Iraq's Kurdistan has ordered the Iraqi national flag be replaced with the Kurdish one in government buildings, the latest move by the autonomous region toward more independence from Baghdad.
The order was issued on Thursday by Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, head of the autonomous government of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, officials said on Saturday.
"According to this resolution, all government sites that used to raise the Baathist flag must lower it and hoist the flag of Kurdistan in its place," read decree No. 60.
The Kurdish flag of red, white and green with a sun in the middle is the predominant one in Kurdistan, where few fly the red, white and black Iraqi flag, associated by ethnic Kurds with Saddam Hussein's Baathist rule and Arab nationalism.
Non-Arab Kurdistan has been autonomous since a failed uprising against Saddam in 1991 that led the United States and Britain to establish a no-fly zone across the region.
The 2003 fall of Saddam, who is on trial for genocide against the Kurds, deepened autonomy in the three provinces. Mountainous Kurdistan has its own parliament and government, and its security forces are made up of former peshmerga militias.
Sunni Arabs, who were dominant under Saddam, fear Kurdish leaders want to secede from the rest of the country, a move they say would encourage majority Shi'ites to carve out their own region in the south and lead to Iraq's breakup.
Since the overthrow of Saddam by U.S-led forces in 2003, the Iraqi flag has been a matter of controversy as Iraq tries to shake off the vestiges of Saddam's rule.
In 2004, Iraq's U.S.-appointed Governing Council approved a new national flag with a pale blue crescent on a white background, but it was never used following criticism.
During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Saddam had the words Allahu Akbar (God is Greatest) with his handwriting inscribed on the national flag.
Iraq's current flag still has Allahu Akbar printed on it but no longer in the former Iraqi leader's handwriting.
� Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.