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No power or state in the world can make me
give up Kirkuk, Massoud Barzani
11.2.2005
BY LIZ SLY, Chicago Tribune 10.Feb.
"Kurds' strong showing in
Kirkuk threatens to inflame tensions". |
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BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT)
- Unofficial results from Kirkuk suggest that
Kurdish parties have won a big majority in elections
for the local government there, leaving Iraq's Kurds
in a powerful position to press their claim to the
disputed oil-rich city.
Kurdish officials and media say that an electoral
alliance of the two main Kurdish parties has won at
least 59 percent in the local election, a result
that would further bolster Kurdish claims that the
northern city of Kirkuk is Kurdish.
The result could inflame tensions between Kurds and
Kirkuk's Arab and Turkmen residents, who believe
they outnumber the Kurds in the already tense city.
Politicians from Iraq's Turkmen community charge
that only massive fraud could have produced such a
result for the alliance of Kurdish parties, the
Kirkuk Brotherhood, and they say they are
challenging the result with Iraq's Election
Commission.
"We are not satisfied with this result, though that
doesn't mean we don't accept democracy," said Faruq
Abdel Rahman, president of the Turkmen Front, which
has close ties to Turkey. "If any political party
wins and the other loses based on forgery, false
figures and marginalization, this cannot be
considered democratic."
Neighboring Turkey, alarmed at the prospect of
Kirkuk falling under Kurdish control, has also
weighed in with complaints about the election,
hinting that Turkey may feel obliged to intervene if
Kirkuk becomes part of Iraqi Kurdistan.
"It is a fact that some irregularities occurred in
the elections," Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan
said in Ankara. "As neighbors of Iraq we are the
ones who feel all the heat of the fire there. It is
our right to pay attention, and this has nothing to
do with interference in internal affairs."
A final election result, originally expected
Thursday, has been delayed several days while Iraq's
Election Commission investigates complaints
affecting 300 ballot boxes. Kirkuk is one of several
places from which complaints have been received,
said Farid Ayar, a spokesman for the commission.
But already it is clear that the Kurds will emerge
from the nationwide election with considerable
leverage in the 275-member National Assembly that
will form the new government and write the new
constitution.
The Kurdish Alliance, which groups the Kurdish
Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, is set to win around 25 percent of the
seats, placing it second to a coalition of Shiite
parties, with slightly more than half. That will
leave Kurds holding the balance of power in an
assembly in which all key decisions will require a
two-thirds majority.
Emboldened by their showing, Iraq's Kurds have been
flexing their muscles. It appears likely that Iraq
will have a Kurdish president, probably Jalal
Talabani, the KDP leader, who threatened to pull out
of the political process if his candidacy is
rejected. Talabani's chances were boosted Thursday
by the endorsement of Adnan Pachachi, a senior Sunni
statesman.
Kurdish leaders have left little doubt that they
intend to use their clout to press for the inclusion
of Kirkuk in a federal Kurdish state, an issue that
promises to be one of the most controversial
confronting the authors of Iraq's new constitution. |
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"No power or state in
the world can make me give up Kirkuk," KDP leader
Massoud Barzani said earlier this week. "Moreover,
these elections have shown Kirkuk's identity."
That is one of Turkey's worst nightmares. The
incorporation of Kirkuk and its surrounding oil
fields into Iraqi Kurdistan could give Iraq's Kurds
the means to declare independence, almost certainly
rekindling the desires of Turkey's own restive Kurds
to secede.
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"This could lead to an independent Kurdish state,"
Gen. Ilker Basbug, deputy head of the Turkish
military, warned on the eve of the election. A
Kurdish victory in Kirkuk would present an
"important security problem for Turkey," he said.
"There could be clashes; these clashes could trigger
an internal war in Iraq."
His warning came after a decision by Iraq's Election
Commission to grant the right to vote in Kirkuk to
Kurds who had been driven out of their homes under
Saddam Hussein's program to "Arabize" the region in
the 1980s. Kurds have been returning in droves to
reclaim their homes and their land, leaving the true
demographic balance in the city unknown and
heightening ethnic tensions.
Abdel Rahman alleged that numerous irregularities
had further increased the Kurdish vote. On election
day, he said, thousands of Kurds traveled to Kirkuk
from neighboring Kurdish provinces to cast ballots,
in violation of the nationwide ban on
inter-provincial travel.
In Rahim Awar, a Kurdish village outside Kirkuk with
a total population of 20,000, 76,000 ballots were
cast, he said. In the village of Shwan, which he
said had no more than 50 houses, more than 9,800
people voted. "Where did these 9,800 people come
from? The moon?" he asked.
Kurdish officials deny there was any fraud.
 "As
far as we are concerned, the Kurds who voted were
the ones forced out by Saddam Hussein and they came
back to vote," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent
member of the Kurdish Alliance
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