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KIRKUK, Iraq — Flush from an election day sweep
in this divided city, the Kurds who now dominate the
provincial council made it clear this month that
they intended to do things differently when they
conducted their public meeting in Kurdish, not
Arabic.
For 90 minutes, about two dozen Kurdish council
members debated issues and shared jokes, leaving
Arabic-speaking citizens and journalists in the
audience scratching their heads and walking out in
frustration. U.S. officials in attendance scrambled
to replace their usual Arabic-language interpreter
with one who spoke Kurdish.
One slightly exasperated Assyrian Christian member,
Sylvana Boya Nasir, finally pleaded that she didn't
understand what was going on. "I don't object to
Kurdish," she said later, "but the language used
should be understood by all members."
The episode underscored the tensions dividing ethnic
rivals in the northern province of Al Tamim, of
which Kirkuk is the capital. Once dominated by
Turkmen and then Kurds, Kirkuk became the center of
an "Arabization" campaign under Saddam Hussein. The
former leader expelled up to 100,000 Kurds and
replaced them with Arabs over a 20-year period, in
an effort to tighten his grip over the province and
its oil, estimated to be 6% of the world's known
reserves.
After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, thousands
of Kurds flooded back to Kirkuk, living in refugee
camps, squatting on public land and demanding the
right to return home.
Today, Kirkuk's diverse population and oil wealth
have put it at the top of the national agenda. The
city's future has been a contentious topic during
negotiations between Kurds, who are mostly Sunni
Muslims, and Shiite Muslim Arabs meeting to form a
new national government.
For the last two years, feuding groups in Kirkuk
coexisted under a U.S.-brokered power-sharing
agreement that prevented any ethnicity from
dominating.
But the Jan. 30 election gave Kurds a solid majority
— 63% of the council seats — leaving Turkmen with
19% and Arabs 12%.
Kurdish leaders in Kirkuk have insisted they will be
gracious winners and reach out to their longtime
rivals.
"We are extending our hands to the members of the
other slates," said Abdulrahman Mustafa, a Kurd and
the U.S.-backed governor of Kirkuk, who is likely to
retain the job. "They are all our brothers."
Turkmen and Arab leaders, however, say negotiations
have yielded few signs of compromise. The recent
Kurdish-language council meeting only heightened
their anxiety, and a rise in insurgent activity in
the area has added to the sense of instability.
Newly elected Turkmen and Arab council members are
boycotting meetings until a power-sharing agreement
can be hammered out. "If they want stability, we are
all going to have to participate," said Tahsin Kahya,
a council leader with the Islamic Union of Turkmen.
"It's our right to occupy certain posts."
But Kahya's chances of retaining his post as Kirkuk
council chief appear slim. He said Kurds recently
had informed him that the head of the council must
speak Kurdish.
It is not surprising that Kurds are savoring their
victory, which comes as new mass graves are
uncovered on the city's outskirts, a reminder of
Hussein's genocidal campaign against them.
"We are so happy about the election," said Sabir
Ahmed Omar, 54, whose two sons were killed by
Hussein's regime because they were fighters with the
peshmerga, the Kurdish militia. Omar himself is a
former resistance fighter. He proudly raised a baggy
pant leg to reveal a deep scar on his knee from a
grenade attack 35 years ago.
His family was forced to abandon their home and move
north in the late 1980s, he said, but they returned
last year and built a two-room, cinderblock house on
vacant government land on the edge of the city.
"We are dreaming about the changes that now will
take place," Omar said with a broad smile as two
grandchildren played at his feet.
A top priority of the Kurds is to help the 30,000 to
50,000 refugees who are still living in temporary
camps around the city, said Mustafa, the governor.
Compensating those families and building new housing
could cost more than $500 million, he said.
Turkmen and Arabs, meanwhile, are still stinging
from the election results, which they argue were
distorted by thousands of Kurds from other cities
flooding to Kirkuk on election day. Shortly before
the vote, Iraq's electoral commission ruled that up
to 70,000 displaced Kurds could vote in the province
though they did not live here.
"The election is not legal," Kahya said. "The
results don't reflect reality." Kurds dismiss such
complaints. "It doesn't matter whether they accept
the results or not," Mustafa said. "These are the
results."
Arabs fear that Kurds plan to force out thousands of
families, mostly Shiites from the south who were
moved to Kirkuk in Hussein's campaign. Under Article
58 of Iraq's interim constitution, Kurds are
permitted to return and Arabs must leave, though
they will be compensated.
A group of Arab leaders in Kirkuk recently demanded
that the article be amended to permit Arabs to
remain in the city alongside returning Kurds.
"We ask the Kurds to reconsider what they are saying
in their statements and to remind them that they
were not the only ones who suffered during the time
of the tyrant Saddam," said Sheik Abdul-Hadi Darraji,
a spokesman for Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr, who has
been increasingly outspoken about the Kirkuk
controversy.
At national government negotiations recently, Kurds
sought to annex Kirkuk into the Kurdistan region in
northern Iraq, but settled for a pledge from the
Shiites to implement Article 58 this year, before a
new national constitution is drafted, according to
sources familiar with the talks.
Much of that job is likely to fall to Hamid Majid
Moussa, head of the Iraqi Communist Party, who was
tapped in January to lead a new committee charged
with implementing Article 58. A previous
resettlement committee set up by the U.S. languished
unfunded and inactive for more than a year. Moussa
said he had demanded independent funding and a
direct line to the prime minister's office.
He plans to settle disputes over Kirkuk's borders by
appointing an independent arbiter, unanimously
approved by the president and vice presidents, who
will collect evidence from all sides and make a
ruling. Hussein redrew the old borders to include
more Arab communities and fewer Kurdish ones.
On the issue of returning Kurds and removing Arabs
from Kirkuk, Moussa said he would call for a
compensation fund for victims and involve the United
Nations and foreign countries to help craft a fair
process.
The outcome in Kirkuk, he said, is vital to the
future of Iraq.
"Solving this problem," Moussa said, "is going to
bring stability to the entire country."
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