October 6, 2006

ARBIL, Iraq - The security situation in the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk has further deteriorated over the past few weeks after the Iraqi government formed a committee assigned to "normalize the situation".

The creation of that committee under a constitutional provision has led to a rise in ethnic tensions among Kirkuk's Kurdish, Arab and Turkoman populations. Violence has risen with the tensions.

September was one of the bloodiest months for Kirkuk, with an unprecedented number of attacks. For many, the message behind the attacks is to stop implementation of Article 140 of Iraq's constitution, and to inflame sectarian strife in the city.

Article 140 sketches a three-step plan to remove traces of the Arabization policy of the regime of former president Saddam Hussein. The constitution now provides for a census followed by a referendum on the fate of the city, after normalizing the situation. The issue is whether Kirkuk should be added to the autonomous Kurdish-run region of northern Iraq.

Some representatives of non-Kurdish groups in Kirkuk believe that Article 140 supports only Kurdish interests. "We will act as an obstacle in the way of implementing Article 140," Jamal Shan, deputy head of the Iraqi Turkoman Front, told the Kurdish weekly Hawlati in Sulaimaniya. Shan's party has close ties with Turkey and holds three seats in the Iraqi parliament. Implementation of the article would "endanger the geography" of Turkoman territories, Shan said.

Seen as a microcosm of Iraq for its mix of several ethnic groups, Kirkuk awaits an uncertain future as disagreements about the future of the city increase. A victim of its oil wealth, Kirkuk has for long been a divisive issue in Iraq's politics.

Many Kurds say Kirkuk is really a Kurdish city, and that large numbers of Arabs were settled there by the Saddam Hussein regime - a move that Article 140 could undo. They also see the Turkomans, a people of Turkish descent, as outsiders. But each of Kirkuk's ethnic groups claims historical ownership over the city.
Turkomans claim that Kirkuk has been historically a Turkoman-dominated city. Arab leaders say they were legally settled there and have a right to stay. Kurds say that before the start of the Saddam-led ethnic-cleansing policies, Kurds constituted the majority of the population in the city.

Kurdish leaders want to speed up action over Article 140 in the hope of bringing Kirkuk into a Kurdish autonomous region. "There is little time left for implementation of Article 140, but if there is goodwill in Baghdad, then this remaining time is still enough," Mohammed Ihsan, minister for extra-regional affairs in the Arbil-based Kurdistan regional government, said in a statement. He added that the regional government had various strategies to deal with contingencies that may arise over Kirkuk, but did not elaborate.

Interference by neighboring countries, most notably Turkey, is believed to have complicated the situation and rendered a solution more difficult. Turkey claims it acts to protect the Turkoman community in Kirkuk, but not all Turkomans welcome its intervention. Turkoman leader Irfan Kirkuli says Turkomans would be better off joining a Kurdish autonomous area. He also warned against interference by outside powers, saying, "They aim to create turmoil and tension in Kirkuk."

Turkey has been exercising diplomatic and local pressure in support of the Turkomans. Several commentators say Turkey wants to block creation of an autonomous Kurdish region to limit the aspirations of its own Kurdish population. Turkey also claims historical rights in Kirkuk, on the grounds that the city was ruled by Ottoman Turks for centuries until the creation of the modern state of Iraq in the 1920s.

During a recent visit by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan to Ankara, Turkish officials described the situation in Kirkuk as "critical", and asked him to "support Turkey over the current issue of Kirkuk".

Amid all these tensions, residents resent remarks that Kirkuk may become the "flashpoint" for an all-out civil war in the country. But not many are sure how the microcosm can withstand the larger divisions within Iraq.

(Inter Press Service)