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KIRKUK, Iraq, April 17 (AFP) - 6h05 - The
northern oil city of Kirkuk, a melting pot of rival
communities, reflects in miniature Iraq's turbulent
make-up -- dominated by suspicion, frustration and
squabbling.
Just as politicians in Baghdad have been struggling
for more than 10 weeks to form a national
government, the Kurds, Arabs and local Turkman
minority of Kirkuk have failed to form their own
council executive.
"The situation has reached a critical point," said
Tahsin Kahya, a leader of the locak Turkman minority
who, with the local Arabs, fear that Kurds are out
to seize control of the region.
Kahya, a former head of the Taamin province council,
was reelected to the council in January but has
since seen Turkman enthusiasm wilt in the continuing
political bickering.
Kirkuk, the regional capital of Taamin province,
around 250 kilometersmiles) north of Baghdad, is
home to some 850,000 people -- Kurds, Arabs and
Turkmen, a Turkish-speaking minority backed by
authorities in Ankara.
"People are very frustrated, the man in the street
doesn't care about the council make-up. He just
wants his representatives to get down to work and
make sure water and electricity are back on tap,"
said Colonel Gordon Petrie of the US army.
Besides political problems, Kirkuk -- like the rest
of the country -- is not immune to violence.
Last Thursday, three Iraqi policemen were killed and
four people wounded when gunmen attacked a new
police station in the city, while the day before 10
members of Iraq's special oil facilities protection
force were killed in a bomb attack just north of the
oil-rich city.
Ethnic tensions do nothing to help calm the
situation.
The local Kurdish list controls 26 seats on the
council. The Turkmen have nine and the Arabs six.
The Arabs and Turkmen charge that the Kurdish vote
was artificially inflated by the enfranchising of
thousands of Kurdish returnees who had been expelled
from the city under Saddam Hussein's Sunni
Arab-dominated regime.
The make-up of the council executive is only one of
the issues dividing the communities.
Turkmen and Arabs fear the Kurds want to include
Kirkuk province in the semi-autonomous area they
already control in northern Iraq, an ambition openly
expressed by Kurdish leaders.
The Kurds say they originally were in a majority in
Kirkuk province, until Saddam brought in tens of
thousands of poor Arabs in an attempt to wrest local
control away from them.
A population census to determine the current ethnic
make-up of the province was called off when Arabs
protested at alleged moves by the Kurds to bring in
new Kurdish settlers, according to Captain Kim
Tschepen, an intelligence specialist.
Ethnic tension has since risen and while each of the
three communities was to have received a key post in
the new council, the Kurds are now only prepared to
offer one post of deputy governor to both Arabs and
Turkmen, according to US officers.
"The ball is in their court to decide who will take
this post," said Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmad, a council
member from the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
Ahmad said he deplored "the mentality of ethnic
division" responsible for the deadlock on the
council.
In the body's latest session last week, all Turkmen
members boycotted the session, while two Arab
members made only a brief appearance.
"We want a sharing out of the top jobs, but if the
Kurds insist on controlling everything, then let
them do it," says a depressed Tahsin Kahya.
His opposite Arab number on the council, Sheikh
Abdullah Sami al-Assi, appears just as downcast, but
points out that marginalizing Arabs and Turkmen
could backfire against the Kurds.
If the Kurds take full control "then if anything
goes wrong they will be solely responsible," he
says.
AFP
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