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BAGHDAD, April
24, -- An Iraqi commission set up to restore
property confiscated under Saddam Hussein has
received 130,000 claims, a majority of them from
Kirkuk, a city disputed by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs,
a U.S. official said on Monday.
Settling the final status of Kirkuk, a strategic
Kurdish oil-rich city 250 km (155 miles) north of
Baghdad, is one of post-war Iraq's biggest problems.
Observers have warned that failure to settle the
dispute could spark a civil war.
Under Saddam's Baathist rule, thousands of Kurds
were expelled from Kirkuk and replaced by Arabs,
part of Saddam's efforts to cement his control of
the strategic region. Kurds want Kirkuk to be part
of their semi-autonomous Kurdistan, but the
Turkish-speaking ethnic Turkmen also lay claim to
the city.
Of the 130,000 claims received by the Iraqi Property
Claims Commission, set up in 2004 by U.S. occupying
forces, only 9,368 have been settled after parties
exhausted the appeal process, said the official.
"The majority of the claims filed to the commission
came from Kirkuk," said the official, who requested
anonymity. Many claims also came from Baghdad. The
official did not offer a breakdown on which ethnic
groups filed the claims.
The commission only deals with disputes over
properties wrongfully confiscated between July 1968
-- when Saddam's Baath party took power in a coup --
and April 9, 2003 -- the day Baghdad fell to
invading U.S. forces.
Human rights groups say hundreds of Arabs have been
driven out of Kirkuk since Saddam's overthrow. Kurds
say those Arabs who have left the disputed city have
done so of their own accord. Displaced Kurds and
Turkmen have flooded back to the city, hoping to
reclaim property and land.
"If somebody lost his property after April 9, 2003
by the threat of a gun, that has to be addressed by
the criminal court system, not the commission," the
official said.
To resolve disputes, claimants must present property
papers. In some cases, the official said, claimants
have shown up at the commission's regional offices
with Ottoman-era deeds. The Ottoman empire collapsed
at the end of World War One in 1918. (Reporting by
Ibon Villelabeitia, editing by Tim Pearce)
Reuters
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