tel aviv: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced support for Kurdish statehood yesterday, taking a position that appeared to clash with the US preference to keep sectarian war-torn Iraq united.
Israel has maintained discreet military, intelligence and business ties with the Kurds since the 1960s, seeing in the minority ethnic group a buffer against shared Arab adversaries.
The Kurds have seized on recent sectarian chaos in Iraq to expand their autonomous northern territory to include Kirkuk, which sits on vast oil deposits that could make the independent state many dream of economically viable.
But Iraqi Kurds, who have ethnic compatriots in Iran, Turkey and Syria, have hesitated to declare full independence, one reason being the feared response of neighbouring countries.
“We should ... support the Kurdish aspiration for independence,” Netanyahu told Tel Aviv University’s INSS think-tank, after outlining what he described as the collapse of Iraq and other Middle East regions under strife between Arab Sunni and Shias.
Kurds, Netanyahu said, “are a fighting people that has proved its political commitment, political moderation, and deserves political independence”.
Washington wants Iraq’s crumbling unity restored. Last Tuesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Iraqi Kurdish leaders and urged them to seek political integration with Baghdad.
TRIPOLI: A Tunisian diplomat and a fellow embassy staffer abducted in Libya earlier this year were freed by their abductors yesterday after months in captivity, an embassy source said.
“They have been freed and should be returning to Tunisia soon,” the source, who declined to be identified said, adding that the pair were in good health.
Diplomats in Tripoli say militias which fought to topple the Muammar Gaddafi regime in the 2011 uprising often carry out kidnappings to blackmail other countries into releasing Libyans they hold. Embassy employee Mohamed ben Sheikh was kidnapped in Tripoli on March 21 while diplomat Al Aroussi Kontassi was seized April 17.
At the time Tunis said a jihadist group was behind the abductions and was demanding the release of Libyans jailed in Tunisia for their role in a deadly “terrorist operation” that took place three years ago.
Yesterday, the Tunisian embassy source said the pair were freed “thanks to negotiations” but that his government did give in to the demands of the kidnappers.
Their abductions come during a string of attacks targeting diplomats in the Libyan capital.
Jordan’s ambassador to Libya has also been kidnapped and Portugal’s embassy was attacked by gunmen. Libya has been awash with weapons since the end of the uprising that killed Gaddafi and has been gripped by increasing lawlessness.AFP
