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Massoud Barzani warns Turkey not to intervene in
Kirkuk
7.4.2007 |
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President of the Kurdistan region: "We will not let
the Turks intervene in Kirkuk"
April 7, 2007
Erbil, Kurdistan region (Iraq), --- Turkey
must not interfere in the Kurds' bid to attach
Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk to the Kurdistan
semiautonomous zone, the top official in Iraqi
Kurdistan said in remarks broadcast Saturday.
Otherwise, Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said,
Iraq's Kurds will retaliate by intervening in
Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast, where
insurgents have battled for decades to establish
their own autonomy.
Barzani, president of the 15-year-old Kurdish
autonomous region in northern Iraq, issued the
warning after last week's endorsement by the Iraqi
government of a decision to relocate and compensate
thousands of Arabs who moved to the city as part of
Saddam Hussein's campaign to push out the Kurds. |
Massoud Barzani, the President of the autonomous Regional
Government of Kurdistan 'Iraq' |
The government's decision was a major step toward
implementing a constitutional requirement to
determine the status of the disputed city by the end
of the year. The plan will likely turn Kirkuk and
its vast oil reserves over to Kurdish control, a
step rejected by many of Iraq's Arabs and Turkmen —
ethnic Turk who are strongly backed by Turkey.
"We will not let the Turks intervene in Kirkuk,"
Barzani said in an interview with Al-Arabiyah
television. "Kirkuk is an Iraqi city with a Kurdish
identity, historically and geographically. All the
facts prove that Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan."
Some in Turkey have hinted at military action to
prevent the Kurds from gaining control of Kirkuk.
Turkish leaders are concerned that Iraq's Kurds want
Kirkuk's oil revenues to fund a bid for outright
independence, not just autonomy. The Turks fear that
would encourage separatist Kurdish guerrillas in
Turkey, who have been fighting for autonomy since
1984. The conflict has claimed the lives of 37,000
people.
"Turkey is not allowed to
intervene in the Kirkuk issue and if it does, we
will interfere in Diyarbakir's issues and other
cities in Turkey," Barzani said. Diyarbakir is the
largest city in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated
southeast.
Asked if he meant to threaten Turkey, Barzani
responded that he was telling Ankara what would
happen "if Turkey interferes." He said Turkey had
military and diplomatic clout, but that the Kurds
had survived through the Saddam Hussein regime and
that what happened in Kirkuk was "none of their
(Ankara's) business."
When asked about the Turkmen minority in Kirkuk and
Turkey's concern for its ethnic brethren, Barzani
shot back:
"There are 30 million Kurds in Turkey and we don't
interfere there. If they (the Turks) interfere in
Kirkuk over just thousands of Turkmen then we will
take action for the 30 million Kurds in Turkey."
"I hope we don't reach this point, but if the Turks
insist on intervening in Kirkuk matter I am ready to
take responsible for our response," Barzani said.
The ancient city of Kirkuk has a large minority of
Turkmen as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni
Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. Turkmen were a
majority in the city during the Ottoman Empire.
Barzani said the independence and statehood for
Kurds, who live in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq was
a "legitimate and legal right."
"But I am against the use of violence to reach this
goal," he continued.
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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