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Baghdad won't accept Ankara or others'
Kirkuk 'Meddlin' 23.1.2007 |
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Erbil, Kurdistan
Region (Iraq), January 23, -- Iraq's environment
minister has said that the Baghdad government will
not tolerate any external interference in its
affairs, saying the city of Kirkuk, in Kurdistan,
was an internal issue, "over which no foreign
country has a right to interfere."
In an interview with Kurdish daily Aso, minister
Nermin Othman revealed that "a delegation had been
formed to visit neighbouring countries to express
concern at this worrisome meddling". Under Iraq's
new constitution, a local referendum is to be held
this year on whether Kirkuk should join the
Kurdistan regional confederacy, something Ankara
vehemently opposes.
Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
recently warned Iraqi Kurdish groups against
attempting to wrest control of Kirkuk.
In an interview with Adnkronos International (AKI)
the president of the Kurdish regional parliament
Adnan al-Mufti said "the latest Turkish interference
was discussed on Monday. The parliament has decided
to cancel the winter break to summon an
extraordinary session and examine thie grave
situation, to take a firm and decisive stance."
Kirkuk, once part of the Ottoman empire, has a large
minority of ethnic Turks as well as Christians,
Shias and Sunnis, Armenians and Assyrians. Many of
the Kurds were drivenb out under Saddam Hussein's
regime, in a process of forced "Arabisation" of the
oil rich city. Since the US invasion of 2003, many
Kurds have returned and Turkmen and Arabs in the
city now complain of reverse "ethnic cleansing".
Kirkuk lies just south of the autonomous Kurdish
region that runs across Iraq's north-east.
Turkey worries that a strong Kurdish enclave in
northern Iraq with Kirkuk's oil wealth would
galvanise separatist Kurdish guerrillas in Turkey
who have been fighting since 1984 for autonomy.
With tension rising in Kirkuk, the referendum is
shaping up to be a key moment for the Kurdish
region. The Iraq Study Group, chaired by former
secretary of state James Baker, urged in its report
in December that the referendum be postponed for a
year as it could trigger tensions.
adnki com
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The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced more than 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 a Kurdistani city and it 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.
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