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Iraqi parliament chooses temporary post-Saddam flag | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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BAGHDAD, (Reuters) – Iraq’s parliament voted on Tuesday to adopt a new, temporary national flag in a move long demanded by the country’s Kurdish minority who say the Saddam Hussein-era banner is a reminder of the cruelty of his rule.

There was rare unity among members of parliament over the emotional issue, which represents a symbolic break with the past. A previous attempt to change the flag, by the interim government in 2004, was universally rejected by Iraqis.

The debate over a post-Saddam flag was accelerated by a planned pan-Arab meeting of politicians in Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdistan region on March 10. Kurdish officials had refused to fly the current flag, which is banned in Kurdistan.

The new flag will have a limited shelf-life — it will last for one year, during which time discussions will continue on what the final flag should look like.

There was no serious opposition among the Shi’ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish blocs in parliament to the proposed temporary flag — 110 out of the 165 members present supported the change — because it is almost identical to the old one.

It is still red, white and black, but the three green stars in the centre representing unity, freedom and socialism, the motto of Saddam’s now outlawed Baath party, have been removed.

The phrase Allahu Akbar (God is great), added in green Arabic script on Saddam’s orders during the 1991 Gulf War, remains. The script was originally in Saddam’s handwriting but was changed unofficially in 004 to Kufic, a prestigious early form of Arabic calligraphy that originated in Iraq.

The Kurds had wanted the colour of the script changed to yellow to symbolise the Kurdish nation, but it was decided this would be too difficult to read on a white background.

“We are not trying to create a new flag, but we are moving quickly to create a temporary flag that can be flown at the parliamentary conference in Arbil. Since the Kurds reject the current Iraqi flag we needed to find a new one,” said Mofeed al-Jazarie, head of the parliament’s culture committee.

Kurdistan banned the use of the Iraqi flag on public buildings in 2006, sparking a bitter row with the Shi’ite Islamist-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who said the flag should be raised “over any square inch of Iraq”.

Kurds associate the flag with Saddam’s genocidal Anfal campaign against them in the late 1980s in which tens of thousands of people were bombed, shot and gassed.

Kurdistan president Masoud Barzani wrote to the Iraqi parliament last year calling for the flag to be changed. “It is unacceptable that this flag, which reflects the acts of the former regime in spreading hatred and death inside Iraq and between people of the region, is still adopted,” he said in the letter, which Reuters has a copy of.

Jazarie’s committee produced four proposals for parliamentarians to consider, including keeping the three green stars but changing their meaning, and changing the colour of the stars and Allah Akbar to yellow.

The new flag will fly at the March 10 meeting of the Arab parliament in Arbil, capital of Kurdistan, believed to be the first major pan-Arab gathering in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. Notably it is taking place in stable Kurdistan. Holding it in Baghdad would have posed a huge security risk.

The Syria-based parliament has 88 members, four from the parliaments or advisory councils of each Arab League member. It has no binding legislative authority and can give its opinions only on matters referred to it by the Arab League council.