|
Turkey: Kirkuk Not just for Iraqi Kurds,
Conference Delegates from ethnic Turkmen say 16.1.2007 |
|
|
|
Ankara, January
16, -- Delegates at a conference in Ankara on the
future of Iraq's ethnically contested, oil-rich
Kirkuk region concluded that the city and its
surrounding districts should not fall under the
authority of Iraq's Kurdistan regional government
but that "it should be the city of all Iraqis".
Iraq's main Kurdish political parties the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK) led by Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani and the Kurdistan Democratic Party
were not invited
to the one-day conference held at Ankara's Hilton
hotel on Monday.
A PUK representative in Ankara, Behroz Gelali,
criticised his party's exclusion accusing the
conference organisers, Turkish think-tank the Global
Strategy Institute, of bias and of meddling in
Iraq's internal affairs.
The conference was mostly attended by delegates from
Iraqi political parties representing ethnic Turkmen
who live in the Kirkuk region and Shiite and
Christian Arabs. |
Kirkuk city |
These included: Iraq's Turkmen Front, Iraq's
Republicans Union, the Iraq Islamic Party, the Iraq
Dialogue Front, the Assyrian General Congress, the
Shite Association, the Virtue Party (linked to
prominent Shiite cleric Moqtadar al-Sadr), as well
as some Turkish officials and politicians.
"Iraq's national identity should be put forward.
Forty percent of Iraq's oil lies in the Kirkuk area
and a UN peacekeeping force should be deployed
there," said Onur Oymen, a foreign affairs expert
for Turkey's main opposition Republican Peoples
Party (CHP).
The number of guns that civilians and militia own in
Kirkuk amounts 350,000 while more than 40,000
violations of private property were registered last
year, according to a report presented at the
conference.
Adnki com
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 lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region and it is not under the full
control of Kurdistan Regional Government
administration.
A referendum is to be held in late 2007 to decide
whether the oil-rich Kurdish province should be
annexed to the safe semiautonomous Kurdistan region
in Iraq's north.
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 