KRG lays out agenda in Iraq

ERBIL, Iraq, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Kurdish Prime Minister Barham Saleh pledged to maintain regional stability while working with Turkish and Iraqi leaders to resolve outstanding issues.

Saleh was appointed to his position following a victory for his Kurdistan List in the July parliamentary elections in the Kurdish provinces of Iraq.

The KRG is at odds with its neighbors over regional ambitions for the Kurdish population. The latest dispute with Baghdad over the electoral process in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk threatens to delay Iraqi national elections scheduled for January.

The Kurdish and Iraqi central governments are also debating the so-called disputed territories, which lie along a de fact border stretching from Sinjar near the Syrian border to Khanaqin in the eastern province of Diyala.

On domestic concerns, the Kurdish premier said he would commit himself to getting international recognition for the Anfal genocide, an ethnic cleansing campaign perpetrated by the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Several high-ranking officials from the former regime are standing trial in a special court in Baghdad on alleged war crimes related in part to the campaign against the Kurdish population.

Saleh presided over the swearing in of a new Cabinet in the Kurdish capital, Erbil, on Wednesday for a government of 19 ministers.