Kurdistan raises Iraq's new post-Saddam flag

By Shamal Aqrawi

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Iraq's new flag was raised for the first time in the autonomous region of Kurdistan on Sunday in place of a banner Kurds have long said was a painful reminder of Saddam Hussein's rule.

A military band played the Iraqi national anthem as the new flag, which looks similar to the design it replaced, was raised above parliament beside the flag of Kurdistan.

"Today is the start of a new day for relations between the Kurdish region and the rest of Iraq," Adnan al-Mufti, the speaker of Kurdistan's parliament, told Kurdish lawmakers before the ceremony.

"Raising this flag unites us with the other Iraqi peoples in the struggle to build a new Iraq. It is a rebuff to those who say we don't want to be part of the state," he said.

Kurdish officials had refused to fly the old flag, saying it reminded them of Saddam's military campaign against the Kurds in the 1980s that killed tens of thousands.

The new flag, approved for a year after which a permanent replacement will be chosen, looks much like the old one which was 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 the 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.