Author Topic: Iraq says it intends to make 3 new provinces  (Read 395 times)

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Offline flowers

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Iraq says it intends to make 3 new provinces
« on: January 21, 2014, 06:50:04 pm »
http://www.myfoxla.com/story/24504716/iraq-says-it-intends-to-make-3-new-provinces

Quote
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's Shiite-led government said Tuesday it had decided in principle to create three new provinces from contested parts of the country in an apparent attempt to address Sunni grievances and counter the expansion of the Kurdish self-rule region.

One of those provinces would be centered on Fallujah, a city overrun earlier this month by al-Qaida and allied insurgents after more than a year of protests there and in other Sunni cities against what they consider treatment as second-class citizens. Separate province status was not a major Sunni demand, but it could allow the area to receive increased federal funding.

The other two areas - Tuz Khormato and the Ninevah Plain - border Iraq's northern Kurdish self-rule region. The former is a mixed city containing Arabs, Kurds, and ethnic Turkomen, while the latter has a large Christian population.

A statement said the Cabinet had "agreed in principle to turn the areas of Tuz, Fallujah and the Ninevah Plain into provinces and the Cabinet will decide after the fulfilment of the necessary requirements." It did not give a reason for the decision.