Sadrist MP FAWZI AKRAM TARZI: All Options are Open, Resistance Legitimate Right

November 30, 2008 - 01:26:49

BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: A Sadrist legislator said all options are open for the Sadrists in accordance with their constitutional and legal rights, adding “resistance of occupation” is a legitimate right guaranteed by the international law”.

“The Sadrists would not cede their national principles and would continue to seek the independence and full sovereignty of Iraq,” Fawzi Akram Tarzi, a member of parliament from the Sadrist bloc of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, told Aswat al-Iraq.

“We would contest the voting over the security pact with the United States through the federal court on the grounds that the process was not constitutional,” he said, adding the voting was conducted before reading out the items of the agreement.

Sadr had issued a statement prior to the Iraqi government’s endorsement of long-term security deal, known as the status-of-forces agreement (SOFA), in which he urged the parliament to reject it.

Sadr had termed the agreement as one to “sell Iraq and its people just like Muslim lands and peoples had been sold before”.

Tarzi appealed to the Presidential Board (PB) to turn down SOFA just like it did with the law on provincial councils.

The Iraqi parliament on Thursday had passed SOFA with a majority of 149 out of 198 members who attended the session.

The agreement legalizes the presence of 150,000 U.S. troops after a UN mandate for the United States to intervene in Iraq is due to expire at the end of this year.

AmR (P)/SR

Turcoman MP welcomes Kurdish PM statements on Kirkuk power sharing

Baghdad, 04 June 2008 (Voices of Iraq)

Turcoman Lawmaker Fawzi Akram Tarzi on Wednesday welcomes statements of Iraq’s Kurdistan Prime Minister Negervan Barazani, during which he expressed Kurdish readiness to share all ethnic groups in ruling Kirkuk.

“The Turcomans received Barazani’s statements with great optimisms and the Turcoman leaderships realized that the Kirkuk cause will not be solved without understanding as well as to take into consideration the privacy of the city,” Tarzi, a Sadrist, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq (VOI).

Barazani had expressed in statements from Dubai yesterday the Kurds’ readiness to share power with Arabs in the city of Kirkuk,, highlighting the importance role of the U.N. to solve this cause.

The Turcoman MP voiced belief that in case these statements implemented would contribute in realizing peace and security throughout Kirkuk.

Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk , an important and mixed city of Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and Arabs. Kurds seek to include the city in the autonomous Iraq's Kurdistan region, while Sunni Arabs, Turkmen and Shiite Arabs oppose the incorporation. The article currently stipulates that all Arabs in Kirkuk be returned to their original locations in southern and central Iraqi areas, and formerly displaced residents returned to Kirkuk, 250 km northeast of Baghdad.

A referendum, provided for in the Iraqi constitution, was scheduled to be held by the end of 2007 on including the city into the Kurdistan region, but was postponed for six months.
Iraq 's Kurdistan region includes the provinces of Arbil, Sulaimaniya and Duhuk. It has a Kurdish majority population in addition to Turkmen, Arabs, Christians and Chaldean-Assyrians, constituting one fifth of Iraq 's 27 million population, according to figures released by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.