Kirkuk residents welcome SOFA passing, say step toward sovereignty

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Local residents in the city of Kirkuk welcomed the Iraqi Parliament’s passing of the long-term security pact between Iraq and the United States, considering it as a “step in the direction of restoring the country’s full sovereignty”. “The incumbent fledgling government would need to sign security and economic agreements with the U.S. administration in order to improve the deteriorating conditions in Iraq, a country groaning under deprivation for more than 35 years,” Hussein Ahmed al-Juburi, a teacher in Kirkuk city, told IraqiNews.com. The Iraqi parliament on Thursday had approved with a majority of 149 votes to 35 the security pact between Baghdad and Washington, also known as the status of forces agreement (SOFA). The 35 votes that rejected the agreement were those of the Sadrist bloc, or members of parliament loyal to Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, plus six others who considered SOFA as undermining the sovereignty of Iraq. Passing SOFA, which legalize the presence of foreign troops in Iraq and determine their pullout by the year 2011, has been triggering hubbub in the Iraqi political circles for months. Halou Zankana, a journalist, believed that the Iraqi government has to deal adeptly with the new situation and to be prepared for shouldering its constitutional and legal tasks. “The agreement is about saying when the U.S. forces would pack up and leave Iraq, which is a great thing for it should mean an end to the U.S. occupation of the country is brought,” he said. Another Kirkuk resident, Khaled Abdullah, an employee in a cement plant in the oil-rich city, told IraqiNews.com that one of the most distinguished things about SOFA is that its items, particularly the ones about Iraq’s exit from Chapter VII of the UN Charter and a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq, are clear. Chapter VII has to do with the sanctions imposed by all means, including the use of military force against, against a country that disturbs world peace. The chapter became applicable on Iraq after the second Gulf war, in which it occupied the neighboring tiny oil state of Kuwait. A media celebrity, Bahaa Kirkuki, said the endorsement of the agreement was a step in the direction of the democracy-building process and interaction among groups in the parliament for unified opinions in the future. “The opponents of this deal can watch the mechanism for implementing its items in the future to get to know about the real intentions of the U.S. forces,” Kirkuki said. Political analyst Adnan Tawfiq said in order for Iraq to get out of this ill condition, it has to sign partnership deals like SOFA with major powers like the United States and Britain. “The Iraqi parliament’s approval on the agreement is a case of democracy we have been denied throughout the past years,” said Tawfiq. Some figures in Kirkuk, however, had a very different view of the deal. Hussein Mahmoud of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s office in Kirkuk told IraqiNews.com that the Sadrists reject SOFA altogether on the grounds that it only serves the U.S. interests, not the Iraqi people’s. “The adoption of this agreement is shame to all Iraqis,” Mahmoud stressed. The Sadrists, who keep 29 out of a total 275 seats in the Iraqi parliament, are outspokenly criticizing the security pact, which, they said, would “consolidate the U.S. occupation of Iraq”. After the agreement was passed on Thursday, an influential Sadr has given instructions to raise black banners, close his offices all over the country for three days and hold funerary processions in “mourning” over the deal endorsement. Abad Ali Kuweid, an employee in the North Oil Company, said he was totally against the agreement. “SOFA is illegitimate, undermines Iraq’s sovereignty and has no mention of U.S. troop withdrawals from the country. I am really amazed Parliament has passed it,” he said. AmR (R)/SR Number of Read