Nermeen Al-Mufti captures the mood in Sulaymania following Jalal Talabani becoming Iraq's first Kurdish president The news that Jalal Talabani, head of the Patriotic Union Party of Kurdistan (PUK), would be Iraq's new president was cause for celebration among his supporters in Sulaymania, Talabani's power base for over a decade. In both Sulaymania and Kirkuk, however, the euphoria was balanced by Turkoman and Arab residents keen not to be drawn into any confrontation. Talabani, said one Turkoman politician, "make a fine president so long as he keeps the nation and the country together". Sulaymania, unlike the majority of Iraq's towns and cities, shows few traces of the war that continues to ravage other parts of Iraq. There is little telltale destruction: instead, signs of reconstruction are everywhere. The news of Talabani's successful bid for the presidency brought a great swathe of the city's population into the streets to celebrate. Kurdish music could be heard above the crowds, while on street corners young people danced. The city is plastered with Talabani's picture and many in the crowds carried Kurdish flags rather than the Iraqi flag beneath which Talabani was sworn into office. The green ribbons tied around people's heads are not an Islamic symbol but the colour of the PUK, Talabani's party. Fouad Maasoum, a close associate of Talabani, insisted immediately following the new president's inauguration, that he was Iraqi first and Kurdish second. It may have reassured some of those Iraqis who boycotted the elections but not everyone is buying it. Talabani will be speaking in Arabic, participating in Arab conferences and representing the Iraqi flag regardless of what the Kurds may think, argues Professor Moan Taleb of Baghdad University. And he has, and continues to be opposed to secession, says Ribwar Hamza, a young Kurdish poet. That is unlikely to go down well with Shirzad Sirdar, a university student, who does not want to see Talabani joining the Arab ranks says that if a referendum were held he would vote for an independent state. Adiba Ali, a teacher dressed mostly in green, believes that Talabani's election means Iraqis are not discriminating against their ethnic minorities. "Talabani's presidency will bond the Kurds with Iraq, but the bond should remain federal." His presidency, she adds, is the best possible answer to the Halabja massacre. Sulaymania's public squares are in the process of being renamed after Kurdish heroes. One is now called Muammar Qaddafi -- the Libyan president has been a staunch supporter of Kurdish rights. It was in Sulaymania, immediately following the occupation, that the referendum movement was launched. How many of its supporters, it is impossible not to wonder, are familiar with Kurdistan and the National Kurdish Movement, the book in which Talabani recalls meeting Saddam Hussein and Gamal Abdel- Nasser in Cairo, a meeting at which he pleaded for self-rule in Kurdistan. The self-rule law passed by Saddam in 1970 incorporated many of Talabani's ideas. And what of relations between Talabani and Masoud Barazani, head of the Kurdish Democratic Party? Or the allegations of corruption levelled at Talabani in Abdul-Qader Al- Brifkani's The Contemporary National Kurdish Movement: From Mostafa Barazani to Masoud Barazani ? The Kurdish leadership is likely to remain fractious for some time yet. Kirkuk is the Talabani clan's hometown, the place where Iraq's new president went to high school. Will the Kurds press with their demands for control of the town? Turhan Al-Mufti, a member of the provincial council, told Al-Ahram Weekly that Kurds now control a majority of provincial council seats following a poor turnout of Turkoman voters, 42 per cent of whom stayed away from the polls. "The Kurds have 27 members of the 41-member council and as the majority can form the Kirkuk administration as they please," Al- Mufti explained. "But the administration has not yet been formed and we are still in negotiations with them." Al-Mufti is encouraged by the fact that the Kurds are talking with other members of the council rather than forming an administration without negotiating. Many of the Kurds celebrating in Sulaymania hope the city will unite with Irbil under a single administration. The rest of the country, meanwhile, is uncertain. It is far from clear if Kurdish claims on Kirkuk will be pursued, if the Peshmerga will be retained, and if the Kurds will continue to insist on 25 per cent of the country's budget allocations.
