Jalal Talabani

Military confrontation is not a suitable alternative in confronting terror and current security threats.

As president of Iraq, I shall strive to represent the diversity of a country that has too often in the past denied difference.

Rather, it is through conciliation and compromise that we are building a fair Iraq, a just state for all its peoples.

The justice of our cause must be reflected in the manner in which we rectify the crimes of the past.

The Kurdish people have the right of self-determination like every other nation in the world.

This will be Iraq for all without discrimination among Iraqi citizens, or ethnic or sectarian discrimination.

Justice for the major perpetrators cannot be separated from the vindication of the rights of the individual victim.

My door will always be open to those who genuinely renounce violence and seek peaceful accommodation into our nascent democracy.

Democracies, unlike dictatorships, are forgiving and generous, but they cannot survive unless they fight.

Self-determination could mean independence, confederacy, federal and autonomy.

Iraq is not occupied, but there are foreign forces on its soil, which is different.

We must provide all kinds of freedom, personal and economic, to all Iraqis. I will fight for that.