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CNN Live At Daybreak

Iraq Reacts to Report on Kurdish Offer to U.S.

Aired August 14, 2002 - 06:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: We have to go to -- live to Iraq now for reaction to CNN's exclusive report on the Kurdish offer.
Our Jane Arraf is covering the story from Baghdad -- good morning.

JANE ARRAF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol, how are you?

COSTELLO: There you are -- Jane.

ARRAF: It was an extraordinary offer, an extraordinary statement from Jalal Talabani. So extraordinary in fact, it's almost a declaration of war by a major faction in Iraq. Because of the importance of this and the drama, reaction virtually has to come from the very top and that means President Saddam Hussein. He generally gives statements with a few hours notice. Nothing yet, but there may be something later today. But Iraq is trying to keep quite a low profile, trying to keep its head down in fact.

Today it's had an envoy from the U.N. to get what may be the last of Kuwaiti property that Iraq is returning in an attempt to improve relations with Kuwait. There's also a Palestinian envoy here pledging his support. And Iraq today taking pains to make sure that the world knows it hasn't entirely closed the door on letting weapons inspectors back in. Official sources tell us that despite a statement by the information minister indicating that weapons inspectors are over, just the day before yesterday, that may not necessarily be the case and there's still room to negotiate -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So do you think that's because of what the Kurdish leader said on CNN? And why do you think he said that at this particular time?

ARRAF: Well a lot of it probably has to do with his location. He was speaking from Washington. It's certainly not something that he says when he's in Iraq. He doesn't go to central Iraq, to Baghdad. He's been in the north in the Iraqi -- in the Kurdish-controlled territories virtually since the end of the Gulf War. But it's what the Iraqi leadership has always suspected of the Kurds.

While Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leader who made that statement saying that U.S. troops were welcome, has always said that he believes in the integrity of Iraq and he believes that the Iraqi leadership in Baghdad should be in charge of this country. Iraqi leadership itself hasn't quite believed him and they've suspected that he's felt this way all along. Now we have a very dramatic reiteration of that feeling. There's still another piece of the puzzle, though. There's another major faction in Kurdish-controlled territories in the north which probably won't go down that road. Sufarasani (ph), who has traditionally been much closer to Baghdad, and it looks as if nothing else this is setting the stage for a severe clash between the two factions in some respects -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Jane Arraf reporting live from Baghdad this morning.

And we apologize for our audio difficulties, but she was talking of very important things of the United States possibly using northern Iraq as a staging area of some kind. We just don't know yet.

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