Barzani, left, and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan leader Jalal Talabani

PARIS, November 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Turkey has no need for concern as Iraqi Kurds have no desire for independence in should Iraq's President Saddam Hussein be ousted, Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani said Friday, November 29.

"The Turks have no reason to be concerned as our proposals are based on the framework of a federal state, including a central government," said Talabani who heads the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

"Federalism will in fact reunify a country which is divided into several zones," said Talabani who is taking part in a conference in Paris on the future of Iraq's Kurdish population, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The notion of a federal state was decided in 1992 during a meeting of Iraqi opposition parties in Salahuddin in the northern Iraqi Kurdish enclave, he said.

Earlier Friday, Talabani, along with Massoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), met the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana in Brussels where they called on the European Union to play a greater role in both Kurdish and Iraqi affairs.

"We want a greater EU role in our affairs and in Iraqi affairs, this was the main message. We expressed our concerns to him about the possibilities of an eventual conflict and we requested more understanding from the EU to the situation in Iraq as a whole and to the Kurdish issue in particular," the leaders' spokesman Hoshyar Zebari said.

"In this conference, we will try to make it more unified. This is the intention of everybody. Everybody is engaged fully to see this (conference) as a successful event, a major public event for the world, to have a unified message, a unified position for a free, democratic, pluralistic, federal and united Iraq," Zebari said.

It was the Kurd leaders' first meeting with Solana who "proved to be very understanding," Talabani said.

The PUK and the KDP have joint control of the northern Iraqi Kurdish enclave which has been off-limits to Baghdad since 1991 and is protected by a U.S. and British-enforced no-fly zone.

Both leaders are scheduled to attend a meeting of Iraq's divided opposition in London on December 13-15. More than 50 political parties and movements opposed to Saddam Hussein are expected to attend.

Talabani said the conference would serve a vital purpose for airing and clarifying several views about Iraq's future.

Barzani and Talabani have previously expressed their desire to see a democratic government replace Saddam's autocratic rule. But they have also said they hoped war in the region could be averted.

"We do not want to see war in Iraq, we don't want to see an invasion of Iraq," Barzani said.

Barzani said Wednesday, November 27, that Iraqi Kurds cannot back any attempt to overthrow Saddam Hussein without a clear consensus on what government would take his place, implicitly rejecting U.S. plans for the set-up of a post-Saddam state.

"We cannot speak of overthrowing the regime without coming to an agreement on an alternative," said Barzani.

In a radio interview with the BBC's Arab language news service, Barzani spurned the idea of a prolonged U.S. military presence in the region, thereby implicitly rejecting part of the secret U.S. plans.

He also rejected the idea of having the military run the country - another tenet of the reported U.S. plan. "The role of soldiers is to defend the territory," Barzani said.

The U.S. three-phase plan, US News and World Report reported Monday, November 25, calls initially for military rule in Iraq under a U.S. general with a sizable occupying force, followed by an international civilian administration.

The final phase would be a representative, multi-ethnic government that rejects weapons of mass destruction, the weekly news magazine said, quoting senior officials.

But Barzani said the United States should instead consult with Iraqis and the Kurdish leaders to put together a plan for the future of the state. "If they want to ensure security, they should listen to us," he said.

Barzani also told BBC he opposed the formation of a provisional Iraqi government, even though the idea has been supported by some opposition leaders in exile.  

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