SALAHUDDIN, IRAQ — The president of Iraq's Kurdish region charged Saturday that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki was drifting toward authoritarian rule, in the latest sign of the dangerous rift that has emerged between the Iraqi leader and his partners in the country's ruling coalition.
"One gets lost in absolute authority," said Massoud Barzani, the leader of the semi- autonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north. "You become too authoritarian, you lose yourself."
In an interview at his palatial office here, Barzani accused Maliki of working to purge Kurds from the Iraqi security forces. And citing concerns about changes to the constitution, he refused to rule out the possibility that Kurdistan could declare independence from Iraq.
"For sure, we will not accept an Iraq ruled by dictatorship," he said, sitting in a room with a view of the snow-topped Zagros mountains.
The Kurds, who are scattered across several Middle Eastern nations, have long fought to establish their own state. Iraq's Kurdistan is the closest that the ethnic minority has come to achieving its nationalist dreams. But now, 18 years after the Kurds achieved de facto independence, the population once again is worried that Iraq's Arabs could turn on them.
Barzani said he hopes that an upcoming visit by Maliki to Kurdistan and a series of working groups set up in November would go a long way toward resolving the problems.
His comments in the hour-long interview with the Los Angeles Times veered from direct attacks on the prime minister's record to the conciliatory. He denied rumors that efforts were underway by parties in the government to replace Maliki.
Barzani, dressed in an olive military shirt, baggy traditional pantaloons, sash and cummerbund, and a headdress, appeared to grapple with his turbulent relations with Maliki. He described how he had intervened to block an attempt to overthrow Maliki in spring 2007 and how he had offered crucial support last year when an embattled Maliki ordered his forces into the southern city of Basra.
A veteran of the guerrilla struggle against Saddam Hussein's regime, Barzani demanded a reason for what he felt was the prime minister's desertion of the Kurds.
"We want to know. It is also a surprise for us. In Arabic there is a saying that absolute authority could lead to an individual losing insight or [his] bearing. In other words, his character would be lost in absolute authority," he said.
