Jalal Talibani rejects attacking Iraq

The leader of the Kurdistani national federation Jalal al-Talibani has rejected any attack that damages the interests of the Iraqi people or inflecting destruction on its economic infrastructure.

He stressed the need of "cooperating with the Iraqis in order to have a liberal and democratic Iraq and to work together in order to reach fundamental solutions to all problems." Talibani, who is currently in Washington expressed his optimism over the results of his talks together with an opposition delegation with the Bush administration. He indicated that the talks included important strategic issues and that it was "the first time in which the US administration showed interest in the Iraqi issue up to this level."

On his assessment to the results of Washington's talks, Talibani put his view point saying "for the first time all sides share with the American administration and at this level of negotiations, and secondly; all of the American administration have this time united their decision towards Iraq and towards the Iraqi opposition, while in the past there used to be different decisions to this effect."