ANKARA - Turkish Daily News
Tuesday, January 3, 2006

56 mayors in the Southeast face prosecution for their support of Roj TV

The Diyarbakır Prosecutor's Office has opened a criminal inquiry into a letter signed by 56 Democratic Society Party (DTP) mayors and sent to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, asking him not to close down Roj TV, which broadcasts in Kurdish from Denmark.

 by Ahmed Janabi
Monday 2 January 2006 7:16 AM GMT

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Iraqi interim prime minister, has held a long closed-door meeting with Massoud Barzani, president of the Iraqi Kurdistan province, in Salah al-Din resort in northern Iraq.

Los Angeles Times

Published December 29, 2005

Posted on Wed, Dec. 28, 2005
Some troops prepare to protect territory, ethnic, religious interests By Tom Lasseter Knight Ridder Newspapers KIRKUK, Iraq - Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq's third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.

The Washington Times-ASSOCIATED PRESS- Published December 28, 2005

By Qassim Abdul-Zahra
BAGHDAD - The Shi'ite religious bloc leading Iraq's parliamentary elections held talks yesterday with Kurdish leaders about who should get the top 12 government jobs, as thousands of Sunni Arabs and secular Shi'ites protested what they say was a tainted vote.

By Sabrina Tavernise

The New York Times - MONDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2005
BAGHDAD - Sunni Arab political leaders asked the main Shiite political bloc Sunday to give them 10 Shiite seats in the new Parliament in an early attempt to resolve questions over the results of the election last week. The Shiites refused the request.

By Jim Muir - BBC News, Irbil - 15 December 2005 The mood was festive as Kurds queued to vote in their regional capital, Irbil, and other towns and villages that make up the three provinces of Iraq's Kurdistan region.

By Ellen Knickmeyer - Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, December 17, 2005; A17

BAGHDAD, Dec. 16 - Kurdish and Shiite factional militias and other armed men blocked voters from polling sites in scattered locations during Iraq's national elections, Iraqi and U.S. officials said Friday. While the intimidation likely was not serious enough to influence the outcome of Thursday's vote, one U.S. diplomat said, the overt militia role was part of a dangerous trend in Iraqi politics.

December 11, 2005 - Op-Ed Contributor By KANAN MAKIYA - London

WASHINGTON and Baghdad will be tempted, with the adoption of a new Constitution and the election on Thursday for a four-year government, to declare victory in Iraq. In one sense, they are right to do so. The emerging Iraqi polity undoubtedly represents a radical break not only with the country's past but also with the whole Arab state system established by Britain and France after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Thu Dec 15, 2005 - 6:04 AM ET

Kurdish regional president and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani drops his ballot at a polling station in the northern city of Arbil December 15, 2005. A steady stream of Iraqi voters walked to polling stations nationwide on Thursday to elect their first full-time parliament since Saddam Hussein's overthrow, ignoring sporadic violence such as a mortar attack in Baghdad. REUTERS/Azad Lashkari