MERIP
Media Resource List, August 24, 2005
AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS
on the following topic:
- Iraqi constitution
CHRIS
TOENSING
Chris Toensing is editor
of Middle East Report and executive director of
the Middle East Research and Information Project in Washington,
DC. He commented today: "Barring last-minute changes,
the draft constitution will, at best, undergird the indefinite
continuation of the insurgency and low-grade intra-Iraqi strife.
At worst, it will further deepen communal divides in Iraq
to the point where more serious civil conflict is possible.
The US occupation has inflamed, rather than dampened, these
tensions."
DINA
RIZK KHOURY
Dina
Rizk Khoury is associate professor of history and international
affairs at George Washington University. Her research interests
include the political culture of urban populations in the
early modern Middle East and urban rebellions. She said today:
“If current American pressure
on Iraqis negotiating the constitution persists, the result
may well very lead to the dismantling of Iraq by the various
militias and their leaders. The prospects for a national consensus
on the Iraqi constitution look dimmer than they did in 1925
when the first constitution was drafted under British occupation.”
QUIL
LAWRENCE
Quil Lawrence is a BBC
reporter who has reported extensively from Northern Iraq for
"The World," a BBC/PRI radio program. He wrote "Kurdish
Green Line, Turkish Red Line" for Middle East
Report Online , March 11, 2005. He
said today: "The Kurdish leadership is negotiating with
full knowledge that its constituents don't really want much
to do with the rest of Iraq. What they do want is the city
of Kirkuk, and that might be a deal-breaker not just for the
Arab Sunnis and Shiites, but for neighboring Turkey."
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