Kurdish Leader Bans Iraqi Flag

From Radio Free Liberty (with a massive hat-tip to regular reader kirkrrt)!

September 1, 2006 -- Massud Barzani, the leader of Iraq's northern autonomous Kurdish region, today issued an order not to fly the Iraqi national flag.
Barzani's office said that public offices in Kurdistan flying the Iraqi flag "should lower it and hoist only the Kurdistan flag." (AFP)

Kirkrrt sent this with the simple comment "this can't be good news". He's right. This is an announcement that the Kurds are ready to move for a Greater Kurdistan, in my opinion. It follows on the heels of several high-profile terrorsist attacks by Kurdsish seperatists in Turkey in recent weeks. Whether Turkey and Iran will stand by and let it happen, though, is another question. Both have large forces on the border of Kurdish Iraq and Turkey has already threatened to do an Israel if the U.S. won't get the Kurds back in line.