Rice urges Kurds to ally with other Iraqis

IRBIL, Iraq — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged restless Iraqi Kurds to seek a closer alliance with other Iraqis as she visited the country's relatively peaceful Kurdish region Friday for talks with regional president Massoud Barzani.

Political and sectarian violence, meanwhile, continued to afflict the rest of Iraq. Kurds condemned Thursday's abduction and slaying of a Kurdish lawmaker in Baghdad in a likely sectarian attack, and a Danish soldier was killed in southern Iraq. At least 20 Iraqi civilians were reported killed in bombings and shootings, Iraqi officials said.

Rice declared that Iraq's Kurds, a minority who suffered greatly under Saddam Hussein, can find their best security guarantee not from the United States but from the Iraqi constitution.

The efforts of Iraq's new government to reform the country's constitution and better develop a federal system "is one that can, within the framework of a united Iraq, protect and defend the rights of all people," she said in an appearance with Barzani at his offices.

Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said Kurds are committed to working within the federal system and will share oil revenues from wells discovered in their region.

"Our views were very similar, and we have pledged that we will continue in our efforts in our cooperation to implement the process that we have started, until we establish a federal, democratic, pluralistic Iraq, an Iraq which will be free from terrorism and terrorists," Barzani said.

Despite the apparent harmony, however, U.S. officials have been concerned about issues swirling in Kurdistan, the least violent and most pro-American segment of Iraq.

Many Kurds want to secede from Iraq, especially as they see growing sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Arabs further south.

There has been growing tension with the Turks, who have attacked the Kurdish nationalist group, PKK, within Iraqi borders. The other prominent Kurdish leader, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, recently warned that if neighbors, including Turkey, sought to undermine the sovereignty of Iraq, the Iraqis could try to do the same to them.

Kurds are also in conflict with other Iraqis over how to split oil money. Some Kurds believe that revenues from newly developed oilfields should be spent in Kurdistan, not turned over to the federal treasury. The constitution is vague on this point, as on many others.