ARBIL, Iraq — When the Kurdish President, Massoud Barzani, banned the Iraqi flag from being flown on top of public buildings in Kurdistan this month, the Iraqi Kurds took a further symbolic step towards de facto independence. He justified the ban by saying ‘so many pogroms and mass-killings were committed in its name’. The Iraqi Kurds are not seeking statehood, calculating that this is not now in their interests, but they want a degree of autonomy that amounts almost to the same thing. ‘If there is no federal solution there is no hope for this country,’ Mr Barzani told The Independent in his mountain-top headquarters in Salahudin overlooking the Kurdish capital, Arbil. Mr Barzani’s refusal to allow the Iraqi flag to be hoisted was sharply criticised by politicians in Baghdad. The Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, produced a bizarre endorsement of his national emblem saying: ‘Not only the Kurds were slaughtered under this flag, but many Iraqis were slain under this flag. Iraq was slain under this flag.’ But to many Arab Iraqis the flag means a lot. In Mosul, where Arabs and Kurds are in conflict, the mainly Arab police force went around insisting that shopkeepers and […]