|
The Kirkuk issue
11.10.2007
By Nouri Talabany |
|
|
|
October
11, 2007 - Kirkuk,
Iraq's border with Kurdistan region
Shortly a critical referendum will be held in
Northern Iraq to determine the future of the
important city of Kirkuk. There are real fears that
the aspirations of the Kurds to reclaim the city as
an integral part of the Kurdish region will be
sabotaged.
If the referendum is held and the decision made to
join Iraqi Kurdistan, what will the implications be
for other minority groups and the relations with
Turkey?
Anyone seeking familiarity with the history of the
region need only read Nikiteen's Les Kurdes, which
is a history of the Kurds. In May 1958, in his
preface to this book, the renowned orientalist,
Louis Massignon, wrote that co-operation between the
mountain Kurds and the Seljuki Turks allowed them to
jointly occupy Anatolia. He added that if this
co-operation could be re-established and their small
differences resolved, they would play an important
role in this region of the Middle East.
In the last 30 years, however, everything has
changed as a result of the policy of the Arabisation
of the Kirkuk region. The 1957 census is the last
one which is accepted as legitimate. Today, any
individual or group claiming to have the exact
statistics of the numbers of Kurds, Turkmans, Arabs
and others, is doing so for his own political ends
and is not to be believed.
Today, we face an entirely new situation arising
from the elections for the Kirkuk Provisional
Council held in January 2005. Some people chose not
to participate and, consequently, do not accept its
result. But the strange thing is that every group is
represented in the Council, including those critics
of it.
As for myself, I see the Kirkuk issue not as a
question of minority or majority, but as a lack of
trust in each other which must be overcome. To
succeed, we have to find a way to return to the
pre-1958 situation when all groups lived peacefully
together. This will not be easy, but we should not
be discouraged as there still exist areas in Kirkuk
where this is the norm. This proves that the problem
is not one of ethnicity but of misunderstanding,
often caused by outside interference.
From the creation of the Iraqi state, the Central
Government constantly tried to undermine and
manipulate relations between Kurds and Turkmans,
forcing them both to accept the Government's policy.
For instance, an Arab was always appointed as
Director of Education in Kirkuk. The Kurdish
community was encouraged to believe that the
Turkmans would never allow them to decide their own
policies, and vice versa, if the Director was from
either of their communities.
After the fall of the Ba'athist regime in April
2003, the threat came from some extreme Arab
organisations and from certain other regional states
that were interfering in the internal affairs of
Iraq. They used the Arab and international media to
disseminate propaganda against the Kurds, accusing
them of wanting the "Kurdishisation" of Kirkuk!
In truth, the real interest of all these groups is
Kirkuk's oil. By acts of terrorism, the killing of
innocent people, and threats against anyone who does
not agree with their policies, they aim to make the
city insecure.
Their ultimate goal is to prevent the referendum
taking place in the time stated according to Article
140 of the Iraqi Constitution. They use terrorism as
a means of ensuring that the situation in Kirkuk
remains as it was under Saddam Hussein and the
Ba'athist regime, when the regime controlled the oil
revenue and thousands of donams (1 donam = 2,500
square metres) of prime agricultural land was taken
by new Arab settlers.
But the Kirkuk region belongs geographically to the
Kurdistan region and, even if there were not one
drop of oil there, the Kurds would continue to press
for this. They do not claim that Kirkuk is a city
populated by Kurds alone, but say repeatedly, that
there has always been a mix of ethnic groups who
lived peacefully together and that every effort
should be made to enable them to do so again and to
reinstate the principles which governed their lives
in the past.
It is not the original Turkman families of Kirkuk
who are responsible for attempts to sour relations
between Kurds and Turkmans but those who are under
outside influence. Many ex-leaders of the “Turkman
Front” have spoken of their dealings with various
officials of the Iraqi Security Services and say
that they were unable to take any decision without
consulting them.
Those elements should be rejected. If Kirkuk
province becomes a part of the Kurdish region, the
number of Turkman MPs in the Parliament of Kurdistan
would increase and they would get more ministerial
posts - possibly even the post of Assistant Prime
Minister.
What then of the potentially destabilising presence
of the PKK in southern Kurdistan and the threat by
the Turkish army to invade Kurdistan's territory?
Are the suggestions that the Turkish army will
intervene in northern Iraq serious? In my estimation
that threat was linked to internal problems within
the army, the government and some political parties
during the recent election. The two sides of Turkish
politics are trying to take their problem outside
Turkey and to make it appear that they are
bargaining with each other - the army supported by
some political parties on the one side and the
government on the other.
The real question should be: why doesn’t the Turkish
government instigate a dialogue with representatives
of the Kurdish community in Turkey? The official
Turkish response is that the PKK is regarded as a
terrorist organisation, not only by Turkey, but by
the United States and several European countries
besides.
My response to this is to cite the case of Israel
who, for more than half a century, considered the
PLO to be a terrorist organisation but who later met
with them in Oslo and Washington and are
increasingly negotiating to resolve their problems.
The same thing happened in Northern Ireland, in
Spain, in South Africa and in Southern Sudan. For so
many years, thousands of civilians were killed in
those bloody conflicts but their leaders were
finally forced to sit down together and negotiate.
A resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey would
improve and strengthen economic and commercial ties
between the Turks and the Kurdistan region. It is
fortunate that there are those who now speak of
resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey whereas they
had previously refused even to acknowledge Kurds
existence and the Kurdish language. One such is
General Kenan Everin, an ex-president of the
Republic who took power by coup d'etat in 1980, and
who now speaks even of the de-centralisation of
Turkey.
Regrettably, the attitude of all previous Turkish
governments was against the recognition of the
Kurdish language anywhere in the world. As far back
as 1958 an hour-long, non-political program of news
and songs in Kurdish broadcast by Cairo radio
provoked a protest from the Turkish government of
that time: the Turkish requested that the program to
be withdrawn on the grounds that it threatened the
security of the Turkish state. "Are there any Kurds
in Turkey who make this broadcast dangerous?" Nasser
asked the Turkish ambassador.
It is time to resolve the Kurdish issue in Turkey by
dialogue. Such a dialogue would be in the interest
of both sides and the Kurds have for long been
calling for it.
The view expressed by Massignon 50 years ago that
co-operation between these two nations still holds
true today. Co-operative relations would increase
security in the region and improve the living
standards of the populations of Kurdistan and
Turkey. My hope is that Turkish intellectuals will
follow the example of the Director of Turkish
Security who, in an interview with a Turkish
journalist at the beginning of 2007, questioned why
the armed Kurds in the mountains do not come down
and sit at the negotiating table.
It is time to end the bloodshed and hostility which
has cost the lives of so many innocent people.
Resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey would also
ease Turkey's entry into the EU and we, in this part
of Kurdistan, would be delighted to share a border
with a member of the EU. It would encourage respect
for the principles of democracy and human rights by
the leaders of this part of Kurdistan and bring
these two great nations closer.
Recently there has been an important development in
the region. In July 2007, the Turkish General
Election gave the Party of the Prime Minister, Mr
Erdugan, a large majority of 47 per cent. This will
allow the President of the Republic to be elected
from his Party and to make important amendments to
the Turkish Constitution which will ease Turkey's
passage into the EU.
It will also facilitate dialogue with the Kurdish
group now in parliament and help towards resolving
the Kurdish issue which has now been denied for more
than 80 years. It will encourage the PKK to return
to Turkey and to participate in the political
process.
Resolving the Turkish issue in Turkey will resolve
all the other problems with the Kurdistan Regional
Government and lead to closer and stronger economic
and commercial ties. It will also increase security
and stability in this important region of the Middle
East.
onlineopinion com.au
* Kirkuk city is a
Kurdish 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, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein forced
over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up their
homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize" the city
and the region's oil industry.
Based on Iraq's Constitution 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
|
® 