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Turkoman, Arabs oppose referendum on
future of Kirkuk city 22.8.2006
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Kirkuk,
Kurdistan-Iraq, August 22
Turkoman and Arab in the Iraqi Kurdish city of
Kirkuk took issue Tuesday with a proposed referendum
on the future of the city, describing the measure as
a "ploy for the Kurdization" of the city Arab
parties in the city called for international
monitors to supervise the referendum, which is to
decide whether the city should be a part of an
autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, or some other
designation.
The president of the Iraqi Turkoman Front, Member of
Parliament (MP) Saad Arkeej, claimed that there had
been a systematic campaign involving the settling of
650,000 Kurds into the city in order to alter
Kirkuk's demographic balance.
"We will not allow for a consensus that sidelines
the Iraqi and Turkoman identities in light of these
unjust and forced demographic alterations," Arkeej
said.
"A census of the city's residents must be conducted
under the supervision of international monitors," he
added.
Meanwhile prominent Turkoman MP Ali Mahdi called for
a special federalist designation of Kirkuk so as to
maintain the unity of Iraq and to avoid the
marginalization of the city's Turkoman and Arab
residents.
Arab and Turkoman parties in Kirkuk have
specifically accused Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Massoud
Barzani's (KDP) President of Kurdistan Region of
marginalizing the city's Arab and Turkoman
populations since the fall of the Saddam regime in
2003.
Arabs and Turkoman residents have claimed that their
ethnic populations have been displaced by waves of
Kurds non-native to the city.
The Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced
last week the formation of a committee to examine
the status of the city in light of Iraq's federalist
system. The committee, to be headed by Iraq's
minister of justice, will include the ministers of
interior and youth, and four Kirkuk representatives.
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. 2007 referendum will decide whether
the oil-rich Kurdish province should be annexed to
the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region in Iraq's
north.
Source: DPA
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