By ASO FISHAGI
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Controversial Sunni leader Mashaan al-Juburi has returned to Iraq from several years in exile in Syria, claiming that his relations with Iraq’s Shiite leaders had been mended.
“My return to Iraq was not based on any political agreement,” Juburi told Rudaw in an interview. “It happened after the breakout of the Syrian revolution and the mending of relations between Baghdad and Damascus.”
Juburi, who had led the Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc in the Iraqi parliament, fell out with Iraq’s Shiite leaders and went to Syria where he set up several satellite TV stations that broadcast anti-American programs blasting the US presence in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
He told Rudaw that the Syrian government had recently restricted the work of his TV stations and warned him against criticizing the Iraqi government.
Juburi claimed that he left Iraq in 2006 after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki threatened to have him executed.
“In 2006, Maliki said that if I voted to withdraw confidence from the Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari he would hang me,” Juburi said. “But despite his threat, I shouted in parliament against the government and voted against it.”
During Iraq’s insurgency and sectarian violence, Iraqi leaders accused Juburi of inciting violence through his Damascus-based channels. “Neither I, nor any of the channels I ran, ever worked against the Iraqi government or endorsing the killing of Iraqis,” he claimed.
Following his return to Iraq Juburi appeared on TV, speaking against the leaders of the Kurdistan Region and accusing them of trying to take over Kirkuk, which was interpreted by the Kurds as his way of appeasing Maliki.
But Juburi said that he has never been against the Kurds, adding that he was the first Arab politician to call for Kurdish independence on Al Jazeera TV in 1996.
“I am only against the current Kurdish policy that considers any area of Iraq that has oil as part of Kurdistan,” Juburi said.
He added that he supports the autonomy of the Kurdistan Region, and wants to emulate a similar model for Iraq’s Sunni provinces.
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