THE leader of Iraq's ethnic Kurds brandished the threat of secession yesterday as a row with the Baghdad government over the flying of the Iraqi national flag exposed an increasingly bitter rift. After the Kurdish regional government banned the use of the Iraqi flag on public buildings, the country's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, issued a blunt statement demanding the national tricolour be reinstated and implying that the Kurds' own banner was illegitimate. | “If at any moment we, the Kurdish people and parliament, consider that it is in our interests to declare independence, we will do so and we will fear no-one...” |
A terse statement from Mr Maliki's office, made no direct mention of the Kurds and said: "The Iraqi flag is the only flag that should be raised over any square inch of Iraq, until parliament makes a decision as laid down in the constitution."