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A war between Arabs, Kurds may loom in
Iraq 14.2.2007 |
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Spate of bombings may presage conflict in heart of
oil-rich Kurdistan
February 14, 2007
KIRKUK, Iraq-Kurdistan border, February 13,
-- While the world focuses on Baghdad’s security, a
series of bombings here may be the long-feared start
of a second deadly war in Iraq — this one between
Kurds and Arabs, both with claims on a territory
atop one of the world’s largest oil reserves.
If the escalating violence in Kirkuk erupts into
all-out fighting between heavily armed Kurdish and
Arab groups, it could spark a wider conflict
involving Turkey or Iran. That risk puts the United
States in a bind, caught between ally Turkey, which
is on the side of Arabs and ethnic Turkomen here,
and the Kurds, another strong U.S. ally.
The issue is coming to a head because of a provision
in the Iraqi constitution that calls for a
referendum by year’s end on Kirkuk’s future. Arabs
and Turkomen, backed by Turkey, want to put the vote
off — worried about Kurdish dominance and more
violence if the referendum is held and Kurds win.
But Kurds are determined to press ahead. They deny
it’s because of the black gold in the ground.
“We will have Kirkuk — not for its oil, but because
it is our history,” said Rizgar Ali Hamajan, a Kurd
who is chief of the local provincial council.
In the past two weeks, the city 180 miles north of
Baghdad has suffered a wave of bombings, including
six car bombs on one day alone. One targeted a main
Kurdish political organization. Another bomb this
week seriously wounded a Kurdish teacher.
Some Kurds claim that Sunni Arab groups with al-Qaida
links are now operating here, but Turkomen and Arabs
also have been hit by violence.
The dispute centers on whether this ancient city
should become part of the semi-independent Kurdish
zone in northeast Iraq, or remain as it is, part of
broader Iraq, governed by the Arab-led coalition
government in Baghdad. The referendum, whose date
has not been agreed upon, would settle that by
asking residents which they preferred.
Unlike in Baghdad, in Kirkuk there are sharp lines
between the warring sides, a legacy of a battle for
dominance here that predates the U.S.-led invasion
of 2003.
On one side of the divided city are people like
Abdul-Karim Wadi, a Shiite Arab, who got what
amounted to thousands of dollars in cash and a free
apartment to move to Kirkuk from Baghdad 18 years
ago. He was part of Saddam Hussein’s campaign to
flood the city with Arabs and cleanse it of Kurds.
Now, Wadi says, Kirkuk is his home and he has no
plans to leave. He says he had no idea about
Saddam’s intentions when he moved here.
On the other side are people like Soham Qadir, a
plump Kurdish woman with a quick smile, who lives in
a two-room house made of mud and stone on the city’s
northwest fringe. Driven out of Kirkuk in 1995 by
Saddam’s plan, she and her family returned in 2003
after the U.S.-led invasion — encouraged to do so by
Kurdish politicians.
“We have the right to Kirkuk. It belongs to the
Kurds,” Qadir said.
Chillingly, each side has increased its warnings
that it is armed and ready to fight.
Kurds, in particular, have well-armed, highly
trained peshmerga militias with years of experience
fighting in the past conflicts of northern Iraq.
But Arabs too say they are ready to fight. “We tell
the Kurdish political parties to have a clear
understanding, that if they try to make Kirkuk a
part of Iraqi Kurdistan, then war is coming here,”
warned Sheik Abdul Rahman Munshid, a Sunni Arab
leader.
“They should know we are ready, we are already
organized,” said Munshid, speaking in his palatial
white marble home hidden behind high walls.
Munshid’s neighborhood is known for its links to
Saddam’s loyalists and Sunni insurgents, some with
al-Qaida links, according to residents.
A powerful ally of the Arabs are the Turkomen, a
minority in Iraq concentrated in the north. They
accuse Kurds of intimidation bombings and
kidnappings against them. They say that by
resettling their people, the Kurds are changing the
city’s ethnic balance and taking away Arabs’ and
Turkomen’s voting rights.
“If Kirkuk goes to Kurdistan, we will fight. I will
fight,” warned Ali Mehdi Sadiq, a representative of
the Turkomen. Such a war, he warns, “will bring in
other countries in the region, Turkey and Iran. They
care about what happens here.”
American experts agree that the referendum carries
high risks.
The U.S. Iraq Study Group, the panel led by former
Secretary of State James A. Baker III, said in its
report in December that “given the very dangerous
situation in Kirkuk ... a referendum on the future
of Kirkuk would be explosive and should be delayed.”
So far, President Bush’s administration has not
supported canceling or delaying the vote.
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, has warned
Turkey against interference.
So far, Turkey has held its fire, despite what is
says are frequent provocations. Turkey has been
fighting a Kurdish independence movement within its
borders and has faced harassing attacks by Kurdish
guerrillas, aided by allies who cross the border
from Iraq.
Turkey and Iran also fear an economic boom in Iraq’s
Kurdish region. Should Iraqi Kurds gain control over
the Kirkuk oil fields, it could embolden and finance
the Kurds inside their own countries to push harder
for autonomy. Kirkuk has six oil fields containing
one of Iraq’s largest oil reserves of about 8
billion barrels.
Both Iran and Turkey have sent additional troops to
their borders this year, and fights between Kurdish
guerrillas and Iranian security forces also are up.
There are no accurate figures of the numbers of
Kurds to return to Kirkuk in the last three years,
but estimates range as high as 300,000. Most believe
Kurds are now a majority here.
The last ethnic-breakdown census in Iraq was
conducted in 1957, well before Saddam began his
program to move Arabs to Kirkuk. That count showed
178,000 Kurds, 48,000 Turkomen, 43,000 Arabs and
10,000 Assyrian-Chaldean Christians living in the
city.
AP
** 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.
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.
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