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Shiites say Kurds forced decision on
oil-rich Kirkuk
4.4.2007 |
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Kurds
reportedly threatened to quit the coalition over
city's status, Kurdish legislators rejected charges
that Kurdish
politicians exerted undue force
April 4, 2007
BAGHDAD, -- Shiite lawmakers said the
government decision that likely will hand the
oil-rich Kurdish city of Kirkuk to Kurdish control
was forced on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki when
Kurds threatened to walk out of his ruling coalition
and bring down the government.
The threat and al-Maliki's capitulation outlined the
prime minister's tenuous hold on power and further
emphasized the possibility, some say the likelihood,
that Iraq could break into Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni
regions with little or no central government
control.
A government collapse likely would have brought
chaos to the 7-week-old Baghdad security operation
with al-Maliki a lame duck premier and commander in
chief of Iraqi forces.
"The Kurdish coalition exerted enormous pressure on
us. One of them was a threat by Kurdish lawmakers to
boycott parliament and by ministers to quit the
government," said Haidar al-Abbadi, a member of al-Maliki's
Dawa party. He described the Kurdish pressures as
"blackmail."
At issue was Article 140 of Iraq's constitution that
calls for a referendum in Kirkuk on the city's
status by year's end. The government agreed
Thursday, presumably on al-Maliki's orders and after
the Kurdish threat, to a plan to resettle to their
home regions Arabs who had been moved into Kirkuk
after Saddam Hussein's Baath party came to power in
1968.
The plan is said to be voluntary and Arabs who agree
would be paid $15,500 and given a piece of property
in their regions of origin, according to former
Justice Minister Hashim al-Shibli, who oversaw the
committee on Kirkuk's future.
While the decision avoided what Shiite lawmaker Sami
al-Askari said would have been "a major political
crisis," he said the plan would "cost the government
about $4 billion and that is a huge number."
Shiite and Sunni lawmakers have declared their
opposition to the plan, although they have no say in
the matter short of calling for a vote of confidence
and bringing down the government.
Al-Shibli said the Sunnis had opposed the measure
because the constitution, under which the al-Maliki
government issued the plan, was still under review
with Article 140 on Kirkuk likely to be one of the
key clauses debated.
Al-Maliki took power on the promise, among several
accommodations to Sunnis, that within four months
his government would sponsor a debate on
constitutional amendments that would favor the
minority sect. The debate has never taken place and
the deadline passed at the end of September.
Much of Iraq's vast oil wealth lies under the ground
in the Kirkuk region and in the Shiite-controlled
south. While the Kurds refer to Kirkuk as the
"Kurdish Jerusalem," control of the oil resources
and the city's likely attachment to the Kurdish
semiautonomous region just to the north was believed
the driving motivation for the threat to bring down
the government.
Kurdish legislator Abdul-Khaleq Zangana rejected
charges that Kurdish politicians exerted undue
force. "They can call it whatever they want, whether
blackmail or pressure but this is a Kurdish right
that we will never abandon," he said.
Politics: While the Kurds refer to Kirkuk as
the "Kurdish Jerusalem," control of the oil
resources and the city's likely attachment to the
Kurdistan semiautonomous region just to the north
was believed the driving motivation for the threat
to bring down the government.
'Arabized': Kirkuk, according to the last
census before the Baathists took power, had a
majority Kurdish population. Tens of thousands of
Kurds and non-Arabs fled Kirkuk in the 1980s and
1990s when Saddam's government implemented its "Arabization"
policy. Kurds and non-Arabs were replaced by
pro-government Arabs from the mainly Shiite south.
Saddam accused the Kurds of siding with Iran in the
1980-1988 war with Tehran.
Makeup: The ancient city has a minority of ethnic
Turks as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs,
Armenians and Assyrians
AP
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.
The Iraqi Constitution mandates that a referendum on
control of Kirkuk must be held by the end of this
year 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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