BAGHDAD, June 9 (REUTERS) Kurdish members of Iraq's government will resign if called upon to do so by their leaders after the failure of the latest UNresolution to recognise Kurdish autonomy, a senior Kurdish minister said today.
"If the leadership calls on US to withdraw from the government, then we will do so," Public Works Minister Nasreen Berwari told Reuters.
"All the struggles we made last year have been lost.We've seen how democracy can be usurped," she said in reaction to the Security Council resolution, unanimously passed late yesterday.
The resolution endorses the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq's recently formed government by the end of June, while allowing u s and other coalition forces to remain in Iraq.
But it does not endorse Iraq's interim constitution, agreed in March, which recognised special Kurdish autonomy in three northern Iraq provinces, a clause fought hard for by Iraq's two Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani.
Before the UN vote, Talabani and Barzani, who lead the PUK and KDP parties respectively, threatened to withdraw Kurdish officials from the interim government, said Kurds would not take part in national elections next year and would "bar representatives of the central government from Kurdistan".
Berwari said she fully supported Talabani and Barzani's position and said the lack of endorsement for the interim constitution was a rejection of all minority rights.
"I'm disappointed not only as a Kurd but as a woman.
This is not what we fought for, what we committed to and what we sacrificed for we're very disappointed in the United States." She said she, other Kurdish ministers and senior Kurdish officials were awaiting word from the Kurdish leadership on what to do.
She said she expected a decision shortly.
"I am standing by my leadership.
We will continue to talk, this is not the end, but we really thought that everyone would find it in themselves to recognise the rights laid down in the interim constitution," she said.