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Clashes Fuel Debate Over U.S. Plan to Leave Iraq
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Mar 29, 2011 05:36am |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Monday, March 28, 2011 11:35:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By TIM ARANGO
Published: March 28, 2011
KIRKUK, Iraq — Many in this divided city want American troops to stay longer than the Obama administration has said they will, and a tense standoff on the southern and western edges of town last week showed why. Here, on a bridge, behind the mud brick walls of an abandoned mill and inside a hospice, Kurdish troops from the north were in positions on the outskirts of Arab neighborhoods.
To calm the latest flare-up of the longstanding ethnic rivalries here has required a rush of high-level diplomacy, including phone calls from Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Kurdish leaders and, a rarity in Iraq today, the deployment of American troops.
The confrontation did not turn violent — precisely, many believe, because of the presence of American troops. But they will leave by the end of the year, if the current schedule stands, and many here fear that could lead to ethnic strife, even civil war.
The Kurdish soldiers, known as the pesh merga, were deployed last month by leaders in the semiautonomous northern region worried about Sunni Arab insurgents attacking peaceful demonstrators in the streets. But the action was viewed by local Arabs, American diplomats and military officials and the Iraqi government as provocative and illegal.
Kurdish officials said Monday that the troops had withdrawn as part of a deal with the Americans and the central government, although a witness in Kirkuk reported seeing the troops in their same positions, and an Arab lawmaker in the local council said that only some soldiers had left. |
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