IRAQ: Iraq new flag raised over parliament for first time

Record ID: 376457

  • Title: IRAQ: Iraq new flag raised over parliament for first time
  • Date: 5th February 2008
  • Summary: FLAG FLYING WITH OFFICIALS GATHERED
  • Embargoed: 20th February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADT4H56K42U6EFK6TRDIASDV50
  • Story Text: Iraq's temporary new national flag was raised over the country's parliament for the first time on Tuesday (February 5) in a symbolic break with the past, but many ordinary Iraqis remain unhappy their old banner has been replaced.
    Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presided over the flag-raising outside his offices in central Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone during a ceremony watched by cabinet members and leading dignitaries.
    "It is one of the steps towards boosting ties and eradicating the traces of the past, which is connected with a lot of suffering, blood, chemical weapons, mass graves, the Anfal and sufferings and political adventures, which was regrettably committed under this banner," Maliki told reporters after the flag raising ceremony.
    Last month parliament agreed to adopt the new flag, which is very similar to the old one, in a move long demanded by the country's Kurdish minority who said the old banner was a reminder of the brutality of Saddam Hussein's rule.
    Kurdish officials had refused to fly the old flag which was banned in Iraq's largely autonomous northern Kurdistan region.
    However, officials in at least one city, Falluja in western Anbar province and once a Sunni Arab insurgent stronghold, said they would not fly the new flag.
    The new flag, which has been approved for a year after which a permanent replacement will be chosen, looks much like the old one, first flown after the coup by Saddam's Baath party in 1963.
    It is still red, white and black, but three green stars in the centre representing unity, freedom and socialism, the motto of Saddam's now outlawed Baath party, have been removed.
    The phrase 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Greatest), added in green Arabic script on Saddam's orders during the 1991 Gulf War, remains, but is no longer in his handwriting.
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