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Erbil, 17 June (AKI) - An American newspaper
report earlier this week alleging that police in the
Kurdish controlled Iraqi city of Kirkuk have
arrested scores of ethnic Turkomen - as well as
hundreds of ethnic Arabs - has divided Iraqi
Turkomen representatives, with one group, the Party
of the Turkomen People (PTP) denying that the
arrests took place.
"There have been no detentions and no police
campaign in Kirkuk, the PTP's leader, Erfan Kirkukli,
whose party is allied to the main Kurdish political
groupings in the area, told a news conference.
According to the PTP official, the Washington Post
who published the arrests claim was tipped off by
the Turkomen Front, a group which says it is the
ethnic Turkish minority's representative in the
oil-rich Kirkuk region and in the rest of Iraq.
"The Turkomen Front is hiding behind these erroneous
reports published by the newspaper. All that really
happened was the arrest of certain individuals
suspected of having links with terrorist
organisations or of breaking Iraqi law," Kirkukli
said.
The US State Department in Washington on Thursday
said in had received information that the wave of
arrests in northern Iraq had ended. In a lengthy
investigative report, the Washington Post citing US
military documents, claimed American soldiers were
aware of the arrests and that in some cases had
taken part in joint raids with the Iraqi police.
The Turkomen Front's relations with Kurdish
representatives in Kirkuk have deteriorated since
the fall of Saddam Hussein, with the Front accusing
the Kurds of trying to dominate the region.
During his rule Saddam ordered an "Arabisation"
campaign in the strategically important region -
encouraging Sunni Arabs from his powerbase to move
there and alter the region's mostly Kurdish and
Turkomen-dominant ethnic balance.
But Turkomen now accuse the Kurds of encouringing
Kurdish migrants from other regions in northern Iraq
to move to Kirkuk and claim it as an extension of
the autonomous Kurdistan territory. Kurdish
officials say the influx is made up of Kurds who had
been forced out of Kirkuk during Saddam's regime.
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