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Analysis: Battle looms of Kirkuk, its oil 13.10.2006
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WASHINGTON,
October. 12 (UPI) -- Oil wealth in -- and historical
ties to -- Kirkuk, in Kurdistan (northern Iraq), is
spurring increased violence in the once peaceful
city as the future of it, and the country, is
decided.
The Iraqi Parliament Wednesday cleared the way for
Iraq to be carved into autonomous regions, which
puts Kirkuk in a tug of war that could escalate to a
full-scale civil war.
Oil revenue funds 96.3 percent of Iraq's government
operations, according to Washington-based analysts
PFC Energy, nearly all of which can be found in the
north and south, where the Kurds and Shiites are
majorities, respectively.
And although capacity is at around 2.5 million
barrels per day, still below prewar levels,
production is volatile and settling around 2 million
barrels per day.
While estimates vary, oil fields in Kirkuk are
estimated to have reserves of about 11 billion
barrels, according to a 2005 survey of experts
conducted by the Paris-based International Energy
Agency.
The Kurdistan Regional Government, which has enjoyed
autonomy since 1991, wants Kirkuk as its capital.
The historically Kurdish city -- heavily mixed with
Turkmen, Christian, Shiite and Sunni populations --
lies outside officially recognized KRG control. Its
Kurdish majority was further eroded in the 1980s
during Saddam Hussein's forced settling of Arabs
there, displacing Kurds.
But as Kurds begin to return to Kirkuk, control over
the territory has become more critical for directing
its future with the region witnessing an upswing in
violence more familiar to other areas of Iraq.
The Kuwait News Agency reported five tortured bodies
were found Thursday in the city.
Sunnis also eye Kirkuk as a vital part of a
potential central autonomous region, viewing it as
their only means of direct access to Iraq's oil
wealth if the country splits in three.
"I don't see any possibilities in the near future"
of resolving the Kirkuk issue, said Erik Leaver,
policy outreach director of the Foreign Policy In
Focus project at the Washington-based Institute for
Policy Studies, both because of the deep divisions
within the city now and the bloodshed sure to follow
any decision of Kirkuk's fate.
"It can't be a flashpoint like that," said Leaver.
"They just can't handle it," he said, referring to
the civilians trying to live in a battlefield
country and the occupation forces trying to quell
the impending civil war.
"The oil issue is sort of central to it," he said.
Kurdish politicians, wielding the power autonomy
brings, are ensuring the Kirkuk debate happens.
"Their prominent role in drafting the constitution
in 2005 enabled them to insert a paragraph that
ordains a government-led de-Arabisation program in
Kirkuk, to be followed by a census and local
referendum by the end of 2007" to decide who would
control the city, the International Crisis Group
wrote in a July 18 report titled "Iraq and the
Kurds: The Brewing Battle Over Kirkuk."
But Kirkuk as a part of the KRG, let alone the
capital, is heavily opposed -- not only by Sunnis
who would lose oil resources. Both Iran and Turkey
fear a Kurdistan in Iraq would be too much
inspiration for their Kurdish minorities.
"Within a year, therefore, Kurds will face a basic
choice: to press ahead with the constitutional
mechanisms over everyone's resistance and risk
violent conflict, or take a step back and seek a
negotiated solution," the ICG report states.
And with the Parliament's move Wednesday the clock's
now ticking: Overcoming a protest boycott by Sunni
and some Shiite members by just one vote it passed
legislation outlining a process by which provinces
can form autonomous regions, although any such move
can't happen until April 2008.
Raed Jarrar, director of the Iraq Project at Global
Exchange, said now politics will unfold fast on the
local level, adding Kirkuk is likely to see "more
clashes, more violence and less stability" as
various factions compete to control the city and
decide its destiny.
A powerful bloc of Shiites, led by the Iran-backed
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, is
intent on creating a southern region, like Kurdistan
in the north, which would control vast oil fields
(and other possible reserves that energy experts
have said could put Iraq at or near Saudi Arabia
levels).
"The problem is there's no oil in Sunnistan," as
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, refers to
the swath of land in the middle of Iraq Sunnis would
be left with, especially if Kirkuk becomes part of
Kurdistan.
"It's the one possibility of oil in Sunnistan, but
it's not self-evidently in Sunnistan," said Pike,
which means the Baghdad-like violence already
evident in Kirkuk will get worse.
Pike says there's no telling how bad the fight over
the city will be.
"I'm afraid we're going to find out," he said.
UPI
The former Iraqi president forced about 250,000
Kurdish residents to give up their homes to Arabs in
the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city and the region's
oil industry.
Kirkuk city is not under the full control of
Kurdistan Regional Government administration. A
referendum in 2007 will decide whether the oil-rich
Kurdish province should be annexed to the safe
semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's north.
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