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American
diplomats were trying to avert a political crisis in
Iraq's ethnically volatile northern province of
Kirkuk this week, amid Sunni and Turkoman claims of
being strong-armed out of key government posts by
the Kurdish majority in the newly elected provincial
council.
After a series of meetings between council members
from the three mainly ethnic-based blocs, six Sunni
Arab members are threatening to boycott the new
council unless the Kurds agree to an equitable
ethnic power-sharing deal.
Frustrated by the Kurds' alleged intransigence, the
Sunni and Turkomans asked US officials to intervene,
preferably by appointing a different council based,
like the interim one, on ethnic quotas.
The Sunni, in particular, decry the results of the
January 30 elections as “unfair”, after logistical
glitches deprived them of ballots at rural voting
stations in the west of the province.
While the Americans refuse to undo the election
results, they are trying to persuade the Kurds to be
“as inclusive as possible” when the council decides
on appointments for top government and police posts.
“We hope they will recognise that you can't run this
province by poking other people in the eye,” one US
diplomat said.
The Kurdistan Alliance, a multi-party electoral bloc
closely tied to the Kurdistan regional government,
scooped up 26 seats on the 41-seat council, up from
just 11 on the previous, US-appointed body.
Western diplomats agree that the Kurds' overwhelming
majority is probably not reflective of the
province's true population makeup, where no ethnic
group is thought to constitute a majority.
The Turkoman bloc now holds nine seats, while the
Arab parties are down to six. These results deprive
the Arab and Turkoman parties of any leverage in the
council.
Kurdish members had apparently dangled the
provincial governorship in front of the Arabs, but
only in return for an agreement that Kirkuk was part
of Kurdistan, local Sunni Arab politicians said.
Mishan al-Jabbouri, a national assembly member
closely linked to Kirkuk's Sunni Arab council bloc,
said that such an accord would bring the province
just a whisker away from annexation by the KRG, an
autonomous enclave that has existed since the 1991
Gulf war. “No respectable Arab could ever sign it,”
he said.
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