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The Kirkuk 'powder keg'
1.3.2007
By Ian Bremmer and Wolfango Piccoli |
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March 1, 2007
New York
For the moment, life is good for Iraqi Kurds. The
northern Iraqi provinces that make up the Kurdish
Autonomous Region have escaped much of the violence
plaguing Baghdad. The Kurdish regional government
has cut deals with foreign energy companies to
exploit the area's oil wealth. A construction boom
is well under way in the cities of Erbil and
Sulaimaniyah.
Trade with Turkey is growing.
But dark clouds are visible on the horizon. To win
Kurdish support for approval of the new Iraqi
Constitution in 2005, a provision was added to the
document that allows the citizens of oil- rich
Kirkuk to vote in a referendum this year on whether
the city will continue to be governed from Baghdad
or come under the jurisdiction of the local Kurdish
government. A vote to bring Kirkuk under Kurdish
control threatens to draw Kurds directly into the
violence roiling other parts of Iraq.
Across the Kurdish provinces, dreams of independence
are alive and well. Central to those dreams is
annexation of Kirkuk, a city of 700,000 people, most
of them Kurds. A referendum would almost certainly
pass control of the city to the local Kurdish
government.
Bomb attacks have driven an unknown number of Shiite
and other minorities from the city. And, on Feb. 4,
the so-called Iraqi Higher Committee for the
Normalization of Kirkuk decreed that the thousands
of (mostly Shiite) Arab families who came to Kirkuk
from Iraq after Saddam Hussein came to power in 1968
will reportedly receive financial compensation for
returning to their towns of origin. Kurdish
officials say this move will right the wrongs
visited on the city during Saddam's "Arabization"
campaign in the 1980s and 1990s.
Demonstrations by Kirkuk's non- Kurds, who fear they
will lose their rights under Kurdish control, have
intensified. Sunnis and Shiites elsewhere in Iraq
fear that moves by the Kurdish regional government
to absorb Kirkuk will cost them access to the oil
revenues it will generate.
Anxiety over the referendum is not limited to Iraq.
In the United States, the final report of the Iraq
Study Group, led by former Secretary of State James
Baker and former Congressmen Lee Hamilton, described
Kirkuk as a "powder keg" and recommended that the
vote be postponed. The report drew a sharp rebuke
from Iraq's president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, who
said that Baker deserves blame for the American
decision in 1991 not to support a Kurdish uprising
against Saddam and cannot be trusted.
But the Kurds' more immediate worry lies just across
the border. Turkey fears that if the Iraqi Kurds do
gain control of Kirkuk, Iraq's semi-autonomous
Kurdish region would have the economic power to move
toward full independence. Ankara, which fears that
Kurdish self-reliance may stoke separatism among
Turkey's own large Kurdish population, also has
called for a delay in the vote.
While Ankara is unlikely to intervene militarily, it
may resort to commercial pressure on the Kurdish
regional government. In 2006 alone, Turkey's exports
to the Kurdish government, particularly fuel,
building materials and food, totaled around $5
billion. More than 600 Turkish companies are
currently operating in Kurdistan region (northern
Iraq).
Turkey also provides crucial land routes for
Kirkuk's oil — when the pipeline, which has been
repeatedly sabotaged by the insurgents, is
operational. Moreover, Turkey's represents the most
direct gateway to northern Iraq for European
markets. By closing the border, Turkey can
effectively disrupt northern Iraq's economic well
being.
There is, however, the possibility that rogue
elements close to nationalist circles and the
Turkish military may carry out subversive activities
and sabotage in northern Iraq in order to increase
ethnic tension ahead of the referendum.
In short, Iraq's Kurdish leaders have a problem.
They know that to hold the referendum is to provoke
Shiites, Sunnis and the Turkish government. Few
Kurdish leaders who oppose a vote are popular enough
to count on unconditional backing from voters, a
clear majority of whom want Kirkuk under Kurdish
regional government control. Though support for the
referendum is politically expedient, it may reap the
whirlwind.
Virtually every Kurdish leader understands that the
surest way to protect the relative stability and
prosperity the Kurdish region of Iraq has gained is
to postpone the vote. But none of them wants to pay
the political price.
For the moment, Kurdish officials continue to insist
publicly that it is postponement of the referendum,
not the vote itself, that will provoke bloodshed.
Plans for the referendum are moving forward. Local
officials say they will conduct a census this summer
to prepare for it.
Shiites, Sunnis, Turks, and even the Americans may
raise pressure for postponement. But that pressure
could backfire and fuel Kurdish determination to
seize their prize.
Perhaps Kurdish officials can find a way to postpone
the vote, but, as in Iraq, provocative acts in
Kirkuk may generate a destructive momentum that no
one can contain.
Ian Bremmer is President of Eurasia Group, the
political risk consultancy. Wolfango Piccoli is
analyst in the Europe & Eurasia Practice at Eurasia
Group.
iht com
**
The former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein 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 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, its population
is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,
Turkmen.
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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