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KIRKUK - A Kurdish-backed list of candidates on
Sunday won a majority of seats on the regional
council that governs this diverse northern city, a
major political step in reversing the bloody course
set by former president Saddam Hussein to make
Kirkuk an Arab-dominated city.
But the highly contested outcome also could spark a
civil war if the Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs who share
the oil-rich city are unable to reconcile the
political shift, their leaders said.
The Kurdish-backed Kirkuk Brotherhood slate won 59
percent of the vote, according to the official
results, which still must be certified. The Iraqi
Turkmen Front got 18 percent of the vote, and the
Arab-dominated Republican Iraqi Gathering won 11
percent.
Dire predictions of war
"We consider it false elections and not honest,"
said Sheik Abdul-Rahman Munshid Asi, a
representative of the Arabic Gathering, one of the
parties running on the Republican Iraqi Gathering
slate. "This will lead to . . . civil war in Kirkuk.
People are angry and feel hatred toward the Kurdish
parties because they worked on marginalizing the
Arabs and Turkmen."
In a sign of just how deep strife runs here, even
before the results of the Jan. 30 election were
released on Sunday, the Turkmen and Arab parties
contested the unofficial tally that gave the Kirkuk
Brotherhood slate a majority.
In Kirkuk, residents of Kurdish neighborhoods
celebrated in the streets, shooting off celebratory
gunfire and holding up pictures of the two main
Kurdish party leaders, Massoud Barzani of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Jalal Talabani of
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a Kurdish
contender to be president of Iraq. By contrast, the
Arab and Turkmen neighborhoods in the city were
quiet.
"Our slate proved that Kirkuk is a Kurdish city,"
said a joyful Najat Hasan Karim, a member of the KDP.
The Turkmen and Arabs believe that the Kurdish
victory can mean only one thing: that the Kurds will
try to annex the city into their semiautonomous zone
in northern Iraq, which has been outside the control
of the Iraqi central government since 1991. They
will fight such a result, many said, even if it
means bloodshed.
Jamal Shan, head of the regional Turkman Watan Party
and the top candidate for the Front of Turkman
national slate, called the election suspect. "We
cannot accept the results," he said. "There is a
conspiracy against the Turkmens and Arabs."
Sunnis ask U.S. forces to stay
Asi, the Arab party representative, called on U.S.
forces to remain in the city to prevent an outbreak
of violence, an unusual plea for help from American
troops from a Sunni Muslim party.
Tens of thousands of Kurds who were driven out of
Kirkuk when Hussein held power returned to vote in
the election, angering Arabs and Turkmens who said
the balloting was skewed against them. The Kurdish
parties have made no secret of their desire to make
Kirkuk a Kurdish city, rectifying decades of
bloodshed and displacement under Hussein and his
Baath Party.
But Razgar Ali, a member of the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan and a member of the Kirkuk Brotherhood
slate that won the majority, said the Kurds are not
trying to settle the score by excluding the other
groups. He said the slate included an Arab, Turkmens
and Christians. "We don't aim to control Kirkuk," he
said. "We want to show its Kurdish identity. The
success of our slate means a success to the Kurds'
project and their struggle in the last decades."
Ismail Ahmed Hadidi, the deputy governor of Kirkuk,
was the Arab candidate on the Kurdish slate.
"I joined this slate because the Arabs don't have
leadership to organize them in Kirkuk," Hadidi said.
"I wanted to be the Arabs' voice in the slate."
In Sulaymaniyah, part of the Kurdish zone, displaced
Kurds said they were adamant about returning the
city to their control.
However, the question of annexing Kirkuk back to the
Kurds "should wait until Iraq is more stable," said
Reben Nasraldeen, 22, a student.
But Rasool Zain Abidin, a professor at the Technical
University of Kirkuk and a Shiite Arab, said: "Kirkuk
is a city for all nationalities and ethnic groups
since it existed. It cannot be given to anyone. This
will be the cancer that will destroy Iraq."
Spinner reported from Fallujah. Special
correspondent Sarok Abdulla Ahmed in Sulaymaniyah
contributed to this report.
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