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After
losing badly in the Iraqi elections, the Turkoman
Front signals a more nuanced approach to the Kurds's
federalism demands.
The main Turkoman political group in Kirkuk is
rethinking its strategy as a result of its failure
to make gains in the January elections.
In a dramatic turnaround, a leading official in the
Turkoman Front indicated the group was now willing
to countenance a federal Kurdistan, as long as the
disputed city of Kirkuk retained a special separate
status that gave all ethnic groups a say in how it
is governed.
The front, a major Turkoman political force which is
aligned with Turkey, has come under pressure to
change since the January 30 ballot, and now looks
set to reform itself.
The oil-producing area around Kirkuk makes the city
a highly desirable asset, and many Kurds view it as
the future capital and economic heart of a future
autonomous Kurdish entity. But as Iraq's boundary
lines are currently drawn, the city lies outside the
three governorates that together make up the
Kurdish-administered region.
Besides the Kurds - tens of thousands of whom have
returned to the area after being forced to move by
Saddam Hussein's ethnic policy of "Arabisation" -
there are significant Turkoman, Arab and Assyrian
communities who all have an interest in the city's
future.
Leading Turkoman political groups, in particular,
have always opposed the Kurds' plan to win more
autonomy and to claim Kirkuk as their own.
Like other Iraqis, Kirkuk voters took part in two
ballots on January 30 - one for the National
Assembly and for the governorate council, in this
case of Taamim province.
The latter was won by the Kirkuk Brotherhood List -
a 12-member coalition that was set up specifically
for this region and included the two main Kurdish
parties plus Turkoman and Arab representatives. The
list got 26 of the 41 seats in the provincial
council.
The major Turkoman political bloc, the Turkoman
Front, performed worse than it had hoped at both
provincial and national levels, winning only eight
seats on the local council.
In the National Assembly vote, the front won only
three seats in the 275-member body, making it an
insignificant player compared with the victorious
Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdish
Alliance List, which came second with 75 seats.
Riyadh Sari Kahya, who heads Turkmen Eli, a leading
party in the Turkoman Front and one of the winning
candidates, admits that he had been hoping to see
the bloc win 30 seats in the national legislature.
With these hopes dashed, Kahya now says the Turkoman
Front would accept a federal arrangement when the
National Assembly drafts the new constitution.
The Kurds have been pressing for Iraq to be
reorganised so that large federal units such as a
Kurdish region - possibly expanded to take in Kirkuk
- would become the basic sub-national entity, rather
than the current 18 governorates.
"The Turkoman now accept a federal solution," said
Kahya, "but they want Kirkuk to be a [separate]
federal entity, administered by Kurds, Turkoman and
Arabs."
In terms of national strategy, Kahya said the
Turkoman Front had decided to join forces with the
United Iraqi Alliance in the transitional
parliament, having turned down a coalition offer
from the Iraqi List, the group led by interim prime
minister Ayad Allawi which came third in the ballot.
But he said the front would also be seeking to open
up a dialogue with the Kurdish parties in the hope
of building a new relationship with them.
He said it was now up to those parties to take the
initiative, especially the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan led by Jalal Talabani, who is tipped to
become Iraqi president.
While still advocating separate status for Kirkuk
rather than accepting that it should be incorporated
into a Kurdish federal entity, Kahya's comments
signal a significant softening of the Turkoman
Front's line because it embraces the idea of a
federal Iraq in which the Kurds would get their own
region.
That change of position may have been prompted by a
new policy in Turkey, which has lent the Turkoman
Front political and diplomatic support since the
group emerged in 1995.
The Turks have until recently opposed Kurdish
demands for a federal entity in northern Iraq, for
fear it could inspire secessionists at home to push
for parts of southeast Turkey to be attached to an
emerging state of Kurdistan.
As well as its concerns about the political future
of the Kurds and Kirkuk, Turkey has maintained a
strong relationship with the Turkoman minority in
Iraq because of common ethnic bonds.
Last week, Talabani met a visiting high-ranking
Turkish delegation headed by the country's special
envoy to Iraq, Fahri Koruturk. According to the
Turkish newspaper Zaman, delegation members told
Talabani that Turkey no longer objects to the Kurds'
call for federalism, as long as there are guarantees
that Iraqi's territorial integrity is maintained and
Kirkuk is given special status.
Apart from forcing a radical change of tack, the
election outcome could prove to have far-reaching
consequences for the Turkoman Front itself.
Media reports have circulated in both Iraq and
Turkey that the bloc is considering dissolving
itself in the wake of its ballot-box failure.
But Kahya denied the rumours, saying that plan was
instead to go back to the drawing board. A
wide-ranging Turkoman Congress scheduled for April
22 would discuss "all options", he said.
He added that in all likelihood the umbrella group's
constituent parties - his own Turkmen Eli plus the
Turkoman National Party, the Independent Turkoman
Movement, and Turkmen Ocagi - would coalesce into a
single political party.
Although there appears to be greater flexibility on
the issue of Kurdish self-rule, Turkoman politicians
outside the front as well as in it appear determined
to prevent Kirkuk being subsumed into a future
Kurdistan.
Younis Bairaqdar, a political independent who was a
member of the outgoing provincial assembly,
highlighted his community's wish to maintain its own
identity, especially given widespread fears that
Kirkuk could be vulnerable to "Kurdification".
Tahseen Kahya, a former head of the same regional
council who represents the Islamic Union of Iraqi
Turkoman - which was part of the United Iraqi
Alliance in the national-level ballot - underlined
that the question of who governs Kirkuk remains
highly sensitive because of the area's complex mix
of ethnicities and sects.
The only way that the city could be merged into the
Kurdish region to the north, he insisted, would be
through a democratic and constitution-writing
process that involved all of Iraq's citizens. In
that case, he said, "We will accept the people's
decision no matter what it is."
Soran Dawde is a correspondent for al-Hurah
Television.
www.iwpr.net
By Kurd Net: This article may not reflect the
Real Picture and History of Kirkuk city, since
Kirkuk is a pure Kurdish city and belongs to
Kurdistan
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