Kurdish reconciliation effort underway

A US delegation under the leadership of David Wales is currently visiting Iraq in an attempt to reconcile the points of view between the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

This visit is considered the first visit by a high-ranking US official to the Kurdish region to discussing methods of settling the disputes between the Kurdish leaders Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani. European sources said that the US delegation includes Turkish and British supervisors, where the US official will seek to convene a trilateral meeting including Wales, Barzani and Talabani in order to convince them to reconcile and hold democratic elections to form a united Kurdish government.

The sources added that "this US attempt to unite the Kurds before the lifting of sanctions from Iraq are so Iraqi President Saddam Hussein cannot take advantage of the dispute between the two parties to end the legal rights of the Kurdish people in Iraq." US President Bill Clinton signed appropriations bill on May 1 that would provide funding for operations against Iraq by supporting opposition forces and would provide for collecting information against Iraqi officials in case of they are brought for indictment for war crimes. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the US president is seeking broader authority to increase efforts of destabilizing the Iraqi government.

The two Kurdish parties receive continuous US support for their resistance of the Iraqi government.