Iraq crisis: Accusations fly between Kurdish leaders and Baghdad hampering co-ordinated action again
July 10, 2014
Kurdish leaders accuse the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, of being hysterical and unbalanced, while he says the Kurdish capital, Erbil, is a centre for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) and adherents of Saddam Hussein.
Kurdish ministers are boycotting cabinet meetings in Baghdad while cargo flights from Baghdad to Erbil and Sulaimaniyah, also in Kurdistan, have been suspended. Road links have already been cut by insurgents. “Relations between Erbil and Baghdad are more poisonous than they have ever been,” said a senior politician in the Iraqi capital.
The development means the Shia-dominated Baghdad government and the Kurds cannot co-ordinate action against Isis, though it threatens both. The angry exchange started on Wednesday, when Mr Maliki caused surprise by accusing the quasi-independent Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of collaborating with Isis and other groups that drove the Iraqi army out of much of northern and western Iraq in June.
In his weekly television address, he said: “We will never be silent about Erbil becoming a base for the operations of the Islamic State and Baathists and al-Qaida and the terrorists.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-crisis-accusations-fly-between-kurdish-leaders-and-baghdad-hampering-coordinated-action
