IRAQ: Ethnic tensions mount in Kirkuk
KIRKUK, 16 Nov 2006 (IRIN) - There are fears that Iraq’s northern city
of Kirkuk will be a hot spot for increased violence following a mass
influx of Kurds into the city in a bid to reverse the Arabisation policy
of the government of ousted president Saddam Hussein.
“People are dying every day in Kirkuk because everyone wants to control
the city, which over the years was under the Sunni Arabs and the
Turkmen. In the past two years, it has come into Kurdish hands,” said
Saleh Younis, political analyst and spokesperson for North Political and
Sociological Group (NPSG), a local organisation that monitors political
tension in northern Iraq.
Kirkuk, some 250km north of Baghdad, is historically an ethnically mixed
city populated by Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians, Arabs and Armenians.
However, its rich oilfields have been a major sticking point that has
pitted Arabs [Sunni and Shi’ite] and Turkmen against the Kurds, who
refer to the city as the ‘Kurdish Jerusalem’.
Some 70 percent of Iraq’s oil-fields are in Kirkuk and the city is,
therefore, vital to the country’s economy.
Arabs, many of whom were Shi’ite, settled in Kirkuk as a result of
incentives that were offered by Saddam’s former government. When the
government fell on 9 April, 2003, Kurdish refugees returned to the city
and insisted that it was Kurdish.
As a result, many Arabs were forced to leave Kirkuk, despite Sunni and
Shi’ite Arab leaders asking them not to. Areas that were once 80 percent
Arab became 80 percent Kurd. In the process of the Kurds’ reversal of
the Arabisation of Kirkuk, thousands of Arabs and Turkmen were killed,
analysts said. Tensions are still high.
Analysts said that the next 18 months will be crucial for Kirkuk’s
future as this will be decided by a census and a referendum that are
scheduled to take place there at the end of 2007. The referendum, in
particular, should settle the question of whether Kirkuk will be annexed
to the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
“Tensions are on the rise because of Kurdish ambitions to have a
referendum in Kirkuk within a year and in other areas they claim as
well,” said Joost Hiltermann, Middle East Project Director for
International Crisis Group (ICG).
Tensions between Turkmen and Kurds
Nearly 100,000 Kurds have returned to Kirkuk since the US-led invasion
of Iraq in 2003, according to ICG.
The ICG reported that in addition to the returning Kurds who were
expelled in the 1980s, other Kurds were also arriving with them to swell
Kurdish numbers in the city.
“The population of Kirkuk governorate in 2003 was 850,000. Today it is
1,150,000. Where did these 300,000 additional persons come from? Let’s
say this number is equal to 50,000 families. Only 10,000 Kurdish
families were expelled under the old regime. Where do these additional
40,000 families come from?” ICG’s report asked.
For Turkmen - who were in the majority in the city 50 years ago,
according to some demographic analysts - the annexation of Kirkuk by
Kurdistan will further dilute their power and increase violence. Tension
between Kurds and Turkmen has risen already and has been responsible for
the killing of dozens of people every week.
The local Turkmen have said that the international community should
intervene and protect them. Many of their families have fled the city
after a serious upsurge of violence.
“We are in the middle of a major crisis. Our children cannot go to
schools, medical assistance is hard to come by as there is violence even
in hospitals and a large number of our people are unemployed,” Abu
Mounir, 45, a Turkmen resident said.
Security deterioration
Security in Kirkurk deteriorated following the killing of Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, former leader of al-Qa’eda in Iraq. “A number of his group
seem to have moved to Kirkuk to foment ethnic trouble, capitalising on
the divisions that exist, and create chaos,” Hiltermann said.
In the past two months, the city has witnessed the bloodiest violence
since the US-led invasion in 2003.
“Most of the killings were a result of ethnic tensions. Each community
wants power but unfortunately the Turkmen do not occupy positions of
authority and [they] lack weapons, making them the main victims of the
violence in Kirkuk,” said Lt. Col. Khalif Mashhadanny, a senior member
of the local police.
He added that most of the 1,000 killings in Kirkuk over the past four
months were due to tension between Kurds and Turkmen.
Kurds are pinning their hopes on the implementation of Article 140 of
the Iraqi Constitution, which aims to reverse the Arabisation policy in
Kirkuk by normalising the city’s situation.
“The implementation of Article 140 in Kirkuk will mean the total loss of
power of Turkmen who have already been killed by Kurds who want to seize
control,” said Jamal Shann, deputy head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITC)
in Kirkuk.
“This Article should not be implemented. We will do whatever is possible
not to let our community lose its last vestiges of power in the
government,” Shann said.
According to Hiltermann, the solution to the Kirkuk problem mostly
depended on what role the international community would take in at least
defusing the crisis by postponing the referendum on Kirkuk and
establishing a mechanism for addressing it.
Bassam Kirdar, a spokesperson for Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
said that Kurds were not for the destruction of Kirkuk or for the
killing of minorities but they just wanted to claim their rights by
getting back what Saddam’s government had taken from them.
“We will make sure that Kirkuk is in our hands through Article 140
because it is our right since we are the majority in Kirkuk and Turkmen
and other minorities should accept this to prevent violence and preserve
the integrity of the city,” Kirdar said.
as/ar/ed
[ENDS]
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