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KIRKUK, Iraq, (AFP) - Turkmen and Arab parties
in the crucial Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk on Sunday
accused majority Kurds of fixing the result of
provincial elections, adding to tensions in the
region.
Official results for the election, held the same day
as Iraq's historic national vote on January 30, have
not yet been released.
But Turkmen and Arab parties in the city, a
longstanding ethnic tinderbox, say Kurds from other
parts of the country flooded Kirkuk on election day
to inflate the community's vote.
The Kurdish list expects to get about 63 percent of
the vote for the Tamim provincial council, which
includes Kirkuk, according to the Kurdish media.
"The elections lack credibility because of the major
violations and the absence of international
observers," a Turkmen candidate for the provincial
council, Saadeddin Arkaj, told AFP after a meeting
of Turkmen parties.
Arkaj said the Iraqi election commission should
review the vote count and investigate the
complaints. "The results fixed by the Kurds will
cause a catastrophe," he warned.
"The Turkmen cannot accept this plot through which
the Kurds want to join Kirkuk to Kurdistan," added
Arkaj.
An Arab candidate for the provincial council, Abdel
Rahman Munshid al-Assi also called the election a
"plot". Thousands of Kurds were brought from the
provinces of Suleimaniyah and Arbil on January 30
"to vote a second time in Kirkuk," he said.
"They are aiming to attach Kirkuk to Kurdistan and
we Arabs and Turkmen reject this," he said after a
meeting of Arab and Turkmen parties late Saturday.
"We are examining all options as we will not have a
real presence on the provincial council. Two thirds
of the seats will go to Kurds," Assi predicted.
Kurdish leaders deny
any vote fraud.
"Unfortunately, the Arabs and Turkmen do not
understand democracy," said Rajkar Ali, a candidate
for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan for the
election.
"We are not seeking to wipe out the presence of our
Arab and Turkmen friends, we want to win back the
rights that were taken from the Kurds," he said.
A decision brokered in January by the interim Iraqi
government gave tens of thousands of displaced Kurds
the right to vote in Kirkuk, effectively tipping the
balance to the Kurdish community and drawing the ire
of neighbouring Turkey.
Sunni and Shiite Arab parties withdrew from the
local election in Tamim province in protest.
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein sought to
Arabise Kirkuk by moving Kurds away and bringing in
Arabs from other parts of the country. Leaders of
the Kurdish autonomous region want Kirkuk to be part
of their region.
Kirkuk is important to Iraq because of its oil
wealth but leaders of the autonomous Kurdish north
have openly said they want control of the city.
Turkey, which has its own Kurd rebellion, worries
about Kurds using Kirkuk as a capital of an
independent state. It has accused the United States
of not doing enough to contain Kurdish groups in
Iraq.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in Turkey on
Sunday, sought to reassure Ankara that Washington
wanted a united Iraq and that it would not allow
attacks in Turkey from Kurdish rebel bases in Iraq.
Copyright (c) 2005 AFP
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