Iraqi Kurds can seek arms, but must inform government- spokesman

The Washington Post reported last week that the Iraqi Kurdish administration had quietly shipped in three C-130 cargo planes loaded with guns and bullets from Bulgaria, stirring concerns among U.S. officials over possible armed confrontation between the Iraqi Kurds and the government.

Such an acquisition would constitute a "violation" of Iraqi law because only the Ministries of Interior and Defense are authorized to import weapons, Iraq's interior minister, Jawad al-Bolani was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

The newspaper quoted federal Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani as saying such a purchase of weapons by the Iraqi Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq would be a violation of the law.

Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh, however, said the government would not oppose the Kurds arming their police if it were aimed at strengthening national or regional security.

"I don't deny there is some tension between the KRG and the federal government due to many issues," Dabbagh was quoted by Reuters as saying. "It won't reach to a level of conflict," he added.

TENSIONS ON THE RISE
The reported arms purchase, which an Iraqi Kurdish official denied and Dabbagh said he knew nothing concrete about, came as tensions between the KRG and the Shi'ite-led government in Baghdad appear to be on the rise.

That has stoked fears of a resurgence of bloodshed at a time when anti-American attacks and conflict between Shi'ites and Sunnis have dropped to their lowest level in four years.

Iraqi Kurds and Iraq's government are at odds over control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which lies outside the Kurdish regional administration, and over how Iraq's oil revenue ought to be distributed.

Dabbagh said regional governments did not have the authority to arm themselves, but the law was unavoidably fuzzy while Iraq was in the process of building a federal system in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi Kurds should have asked the central authorities for equipment, he added. "Either that or they should be informing the federal government," Dabbagh said.

"We understand there is a threat ... and they need to have equipment and weapons for their own police. I don't think the federal government will object to it so long as this comes in those circumstances."

Jabbar Yawer, undersecretary for Peshmerga affairs in the Kurdish Regional Government, denied the Washington Post story.

"As a region we don't have the right to buy any weapons without the consent of the central government, and they haven't allocated any amount in the budget for buying weapons," he was quoted by Reuters as saying. "All our weapons come from old Iraqi army warehouses."