A GREEN LINE AND A RED LINE DIVIDE THE SHIA AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 002741 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/26/2018 TAGS: PGOV PINS IZ SUBJECT: A GREEN LINE AND A RED LINE DIVIDE THE SHIA AND KURDS REF: BAGHDAD 2740 Classified By: POLMINCONS ROBERT S. FORD. REASON 1.4 (B) AND (D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Kurdish-Shia Islamist tensions about Kirkuk complicate passage of a new election law but also reflect a deeper dissatisfaction among some important Shia Islamists about Kurdish policies. An influential Shia parliamentarian ranted to us on August 24 about alleged Kurdish selfishness with respect to oil revenues. A new map of Kurdistan that shows the Kurdish Region one day stretching far south into Iraq also drew his ire. Most important, he warned that cities like Kirkuk and Khanaqin are below the Green Line and hence should not be subject to Kurdish security control. On August 25 Rowsch Shuways, a top Kurdish leader in Baghdad, told us that the Kurds had warned Prime Minister Maliki and his Shia political allies in a closed-door meeting on August 24 that the dispatch of Iraqi security forces to Kirkuk or Khanaqin was a red line for the Kurdish Alliance and would draw hostile fire from the Peshmerga. We cautioned Shuways and Adib both that the Shia and Kurds need to keep talking to each other and look for compromises that will forestall confrontation. Shuways appeared relaxed and indicated he thought the Kurds and Shia would not come to blows. There is an ongoing, structured, high-level Kurdish-Shia dialoge. He cautioned, however, that the Green Line was an agreement between the U.S. and the Kurds. The Kurdish Regional Government, he said, should provide security for Kurdish populations south of the Green Line in disputed areas. END SUMMARY. KEY SHIA ISLAMIST MAD ABOUT OIL -------------- ¶2. (C) Speaking with unconcealed emotion, Dawa Party CoR bloc leader and Prime Minister Maliki confidant Ali al-Adib told us August 24 that he and other Iraqis are fed up with perceived Kurdish selfishness and intransigence. He complained that the Kurds already receive a disproportionate share of oil revenues (17 percent rather than their rightful share of 13 percent) due to a decree issued by the CPA over which Iraqis had no input. The extra four percent, he claimed, comes at the direct expense of the impoverished citizens of the South, where most of the oil is actually produced. In addition, he accused the Kurds of deceitful practices in accounting of oil production in areas bordering non-Kurdish provinces. AND PERCEIVED KURD TERRITORIAL AMBITIONS -------------- ¶3. (C) Adib also claimed the Kurds are trying to grab land not only in adjoining Diyala, Ninewah, and Kirkuk but also in far-flung Wasit and Maysan provinces. (Comment: He spoke of a Kurdish map of Kurdistan that extends Kurdish territories into Maysan; the map that made the rounds here in 2005 only went into Wasit. End Comment.) His voice rising, Abid declared that the GOI should treat Kurdish Peshmerga military units located south of the Green Line as an illegal militia and deal with them accordingly. In response to our question, he insisted that Prime Minister Maliki still feels this way too. When asked about the future of the Dawa-ISCI-PUK-KDP "Group of Four" ruling alliance, Adib said the parties are in the process of testy, emotion-charged discussions about alliance direction and "all issues are on the table." SENIOR KURDISH LEADER UPBEAT ON SHIA ALLIANCE -------------- -------------- ¶4. (C) In contrast to Adib's sharp tone, in his August 25 meeting with poloffs, Rowsch Shuways, the top advisor in Baghdad to KRG President Masood Barzani, was relaxed about the prospects for continuing Kurd-Shia cooperation. He said that the two sides have begun informal conversations on a range of topics to clarify positions and to attempt to reach agreements on issues that they can then take to other political blocs. He said that at the August 24 meeting (attended by Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih (PUK), Minister of Water Resources Latif Rashid (PUK),Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari (KDP) and himself (KDP) for the Kurdish side and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (UIA/Dawa), Adel Abd al-Maliki (UIA/SCIRI) and the PM's Political Adviser Sadik Rakabi inter alia for the Shia side),the group had worked through the first three items of a two page agenda. (Those items were the election law - reported reftel, the U.S.-Iraqi SoFA negotiations and the situation in Diyala.) According to Shuways, the next Shia-Kurd meeting is to address issues that include the role of the Kurds in the national government, the oil law, and the budget law. ¶5. (C) On the situation in Diyala, Shuways said that the issue of the 34th Brigade has been settled: the 34th Brigade BAGHDAD 00002741 002 OF 002 has withdrawn to Khanaqin and it will become a part of the Iraqi Armed Forces. (Comment: This apparently refers to a proposal to use the 34th as a building block for two new Iraqi Army mountain divisions. Details of this plan remain to be agreed between the KRG and the GoI. End Comment.) Shuways confirmed press reports that ISF had entered Kurdish party offices in the Diyala governorate town of Qata Tebe August 24 and had torn down party posters. Shuways downplayed the incident, however. The Prime Minister's office, he said, had noted that the Kurdish parties were squatting in what had been Iraqi government buildings prior to April 2003. Now the Iraqi government wants the buildings back. Shuways thought they all could find a compromise, perhaps be paying a rental fee to use the buildings. GREEN LINE, RED LINE -------------- ¶6. (C) Shuways said that there should not be further cause for concern in Diyala as long as the Iraqi Army does not move to enter Khanaqin. Khanaqin, he observed, is secure and needs no additional security forces. As if reading our minds, Shuways asserted that the Green Line was an agreement between the Kurds and the U.S., implying that it does not apply to the "disputed" areas such as Khanaqin and Kirkuk. ¶7. (C) Shuways was then blunt: for disputed areas south of the Green Line and where there are secure local administrations democratically elected and which are protected by local Kurdish security forces there is no need to send in Iraqi Armed Forces. If the Iraqi Army tried to move into Khanaqin or Kirkuk, Shuways stated flatly, the Kurdish security forces would fight. Shuways opined that there are those on Maliki's staff who would like to see such a confrontation. That said, Shuways added, the GOI has not yet formally raised the issue (the stationing of Iraqi Army troops in "disputed" areas with Kurds. The Kurdish leadership, however, has reports that the Prime Minister will order troops into disputed areas. PolMinCouns warned Shuways that we do not want to see armed confrontation between Kurdish forces and ISF. This, he warned, would be extremely bad for all sides. It was important that the Kurdish leadership continue to discuss with the Prime Minister and his team ways to manage security. Shuways readily agreed. He said the Kurdish leadership awaits a more formal response from the Shia leadership. COMMENT -------------- ¶8. (C) On August 26 there was a small demonstration in Khanaqin calling for Iraqi security forces to stay out of the city. The demonstrators carried Kurdish flags, according to press reports. This demonstration, likely organized by the Kurdish leadership, is part of the posturing in public and in private between the Kurdish Alliance and the Prime Minister and the Shia Islamist Coalition. Shuways is a longtime interlocutor for us, and while he readily admitted there are major issues he didn't appear overly concerned. PM Maliki's political advisor Sadik Rikabi was also relatively relaxed about the state of affairs with the Kurds when we saw him on August 24. By contrast, Ali Adib who is also a longstanding embassy contact has never ranted to us about the Kurds as he did on August 24. (He didn't argue when we told him how much he sounded like some of our Sunni Arab interlocutors who complain of the Kurds.) If Adib's assertion about Maliki wanting to send ISF right up to the Green Line is true, and Shuways thought it was, then Shia-Kurdish tension could ramp up in the weeks ahead. BUTENIS