Iraq's simmering ethnic war over Kirkuk: Tensions are rising between Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen factions

Fri Apr 25 13:43:23 UTC 2008

Iraq's simmering ethnic war over Kirkuk
Tensions are rising between Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen factions over
power and populations in the province, the heart of northern Iraq's
oil industry.

By Sam Dagher | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the April 24, 2008 edition

KIRKUK, Iraq - Graffiti inside this city's ancient hilltop citadel
quickly spells out the tension between Kirkuk's three main ethnic
groups – Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen. On one wall, an eagle descends on
a two-headed serpent meant to symbolize enemies of the Kurdish nation.
Next to it, the word "Arab" is erased and replaced with an etched
"Kurdish" in a slogan that once read: "Kirkuk is an Arab city."
Another slogan reads: "Kirkuk is Turkmen." Kirkuk has been the object
of a bitter struggle over the past five years among Iraq's competing
ethnic and sectarian groups. And now Arab, Kurd, and Turkmen factions
seem to be digging in, anticipating that tensions may erupt in an area
that is the center of northern Iraq's oil industry ahead of a promised
referendum on the fate of Kirkuk Province, officially still called
Tamim, its previous Baath Party-era name.

Article 140 of Iraq's Constitution was supposed to resolve the issue
by the end of 2007 but the deadline for a vote has been extended to
the end of June in the hopes that the United Nations may be able to
broker a solution by then. But with or without a referendum, Kurds
maintain that almost the entirety of Kirkuk Province, of which the
city of Kirkuk is the capital, is a natural part of their
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq. Arabs and Turkmen,
on the other hand, say Article 140 is now "null and void" and that
other solutions must be devised. In general, Turkmen support a
semi-independent Kirkuk Province while Arabs back the idea of the
central government remaining in control.

Meanwhile, the United States is exerting a mix of coercion and
incentives to prevent the feuding parties from battling each other
over the issue. But already local security officials say a simmering
conflict is under way with no day going by without a tit-for-tat
kidnapping or assassination involving a member of the city's three
competing population groups. Turkmen and Arab leaders say hundreds of
their own have been jailed inside Kurdistan. "We kidnap terrorists,
it's the only way to protect Kurdistan," says Muhammad Ihsan, minister
of extraregional affairs in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Mr. Ihsan also says that his government has proof that Turkey, which
is adamant that the Kurds not be allowed to annex Kirkuk into the KRG,
has members of its military intelligence inside Kirkuk at the offices
of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), the Turkmen political coalition.
"This is aggression and interference," he says. On a recent crisp
morning, Ali Hashem, an ITF strongman, was huddled with some of his
colleagues at a diner in downtown Kirkuk. Over a traditional northern
Iraq breakfast of crushed yellow lentil soup and hot bread, they spoke
about what they characterized as aggression and pressure by the two
main ruling Kurdish parties – the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party
(PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) – regarding the
question of Kirkuk.

"In order to defend ourselves, we might be compelled to bear arms one
day," says Mr. Hashem, who is a member of the ITF's executive
committee and the party boss in neighboring Salaheddin Province.
"Kurds have gone too far; they have taken their full rights and now
they want to infringe upon the rights of others." The talk in Kirkuk
is that Hashem is leading a drive to stockpile weapons ahead of any
potential armed confrontation with the Kurds. He does not preclude the
possibility but says his party is still banking on efforts to draft
more Turkmen into local police and Iraqi Army forces, which he says
are disproportionately dominated by Kurds.

The ITF, which is a coalition of six parties, receives significant
support from Turkey and is even considered by many to be a Turkish
proxy party. It's the most militant of the Turkmen parties and has
turned the issue of Kirkuk and what it views as the city's Turkmen
identity into a rallying cry. Turkmen in Iraq, a distinct ethnic
group, are estimated to number anywhere from 250,000 to 2 million.
They, along with Kurds, suffered from Saddam Hussein's policy of
demographic and geographic engineering that accompanied his
Arabization policy of northern Iraq. Turkmen and Arabs now accuse the
Kurds of "Kurdifying" Kirkuk and not waiting for the city's fate to be
decided through a vote. Many accuse them of having brought back to
Kirkuk more than half a million Kurdish inhabitants since the fall of
Mr. Hussein's regime in 2003 and thuggishly seizing control and power
here.

The head of Kirkuk's provincial council, Rizgar Ali, a Kurd, says only
240,000 people, including non-Kurds, have returned since 2003. He says
that hundreds of Kurdish villages in the province remain destroyed and
abandoned. But in Kirkuk it's hard not to notice the overwhelming
Kurdish influence. Entire districts are now thoroughly Kurdish.
Neighborhood and street names and billboards glorifying Kurdish
peshmerga fighters attest to a new assertiveness. The Kurdish-led
coalition dominates the local council with 26 seats, followed by the
Turkmen with nine, and Arabs with six. The Turkmen have been
boycotting the council's meetings since November 2006.

In a recent interview in the Kurdish capital of Arbil, the KRG's Prime
Minister Nechirvan Barzani cupped his hands to describe how Kurdish
forces have Kirkuk surrounded. "If we want to change things by force,
we can do it like that," he says, snapping his fingers.

"But we do not see a solution being imposed by force … we want a
consensus solution accepted by all sides," says Mr. Barzani.

He says his government is under pressure from its own public over the
Kirkuk question and that it is trying to juggle that with its
commitments to the political process in Iraq.

But Ihsan, who is Kurdistan's chief representative in the national
committee that's supposed to resolve the Kirkuk question, says there
is a limit to the KRG's patience and that a forceful annexation may be
an option.

"What do you think, we are going to wait to make Iraq stronger and
come back … even now they are not implementing the Constitution," says
the minister. "We are giving a chance until the end of 2008, but no
more."

The ITF says it's ready for this eventuality. "We will be able to
resist long enough until an outside power intervenes," says Jala
Neftachy, a Turkmen provincial council member. She was among a
delegation that met with top Turkish officials earlier this year and
received assurances that they would stop any forced Kurdish
annexation.

"The Turkish government have confirmed this to us; they will not be
bystanders, they will interfere by force," adds Ms. Neftachy.

• Tomorrow: A United Nations solution is in the works that could calm Kirkuk.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0424/p06s02-wome.html

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