January 31, 2003	Friday	Ziqa’ad 27, 1423

DUBAI, Jan 30: The US will not be able to use Kurds in a possible war against Iraq similar to its use of the Northern Alliance forces in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban regime, said a top Kurdish leader on Thursday.

“It would be very difficult for us to take part in this war for several reasons. We don’t intend to move our troops outside of Kurdish-ruled areas, and within this region, there are no targets for us to hit,” said Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdish Regional Government in Northern Iraq in a published interview.

Massoud Barzani, who is also the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), denied any foreign troops movements or setting up of military installations in Harir, a city in the northeast of Irbil in northern Iraq. “The troops in Harir belong to our forces,” Berzani told Gulf News in Salahuddin, a Kurdish city in Northern Iraq.