"Those who condemn it are chauvinists, escaping from internal problems," Massud Barzani, the president of the Kurdish government, told lawmakers in the northern Iraqi region's parliament in Arbil.

"They are losers. They are not rulers or statesmen. They can't run their region and they want to make Kurdistan just like their regions. The time of threats is over, no one has the right force his will on the Kurdish people."

Barzani was talking shortly after Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite Arab, had ordered that: "The present Iraqi flag should be hoisted on every inch of Iraqi soil until the parliament takes a decision about it."

This was in reaction to Barzani's ban on the flag's use in the Kurdish region, where many see the red, white and black national banner as a symbol of Arab nationalism and of ousted leader Saddam Hussein's hated regime.

"The decision of raising only the Kurdish flag instead of the present Iraqi flag in Kurdistan came after consultation with both President Talabani and the Iraqi prime minister. I did not take the decision myself," Barzani insisted.

"I ask for a new flag for Iraq to be raised, according to Item 12 of Iraqi constitution; A new flag and a new national anthem which represents all the components of Iraq," he told the Kurdish assembly.