|
The Kurdistan Coalition insists on having
article 140 applied as scheduled
14.7.2007 |
|
|
|
July
14, 2007
Erbil-Hewler, Kurdistan region (Iraq), -- The
Kurdistan Coalition (KC) insists on having article
140 of the Iraqi constitution, pertaining to the
status of oil-rich Kirkuk, applied as scheduled
without any delay, a KC member of parliament said on
Saturday.
"The settlement of the issue of Kirkuk was postponed
two times – one during the government of Iyad Allawi
and the second during the government of Ibrahim al-Jaafari
– and this time we will never accept further delay,"
Khalid Shawan, whose KC is the second largest bloc
in the Iraqi parliament with 55 seats, said.
According to art. 140, a referendum will be held to
determine the status of the northern Iraqi Kurdish
city of Kirkuk by the end of 2007 and whether the
city will be part of the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
The article provides for normalizing the situation
in Kirkuk over three stages, ending in a referendum.
It also involves returning the Arabs in Kirkuk to
their original areas in the southern and central
provinces in the country and bringing the displaced
Kurds back to the city which has a potpourri of
Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans and Chaldea-Assyrians.
A committee set up to study article 140 had issued a
decision compensating Arabs in Kirkuk with a sum of
20 million Iraqi dinars (roughly 16,044 thousand
dollars), a plot of land and help transfer their
jobs to their original areas.
Article 140 of the Constitution of Iraq calls for
reversing the Arabization policy employed by the
regime of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
during the Anfal campaign in which hundreds of Kurds
were slain.
Kirkuk lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region, located 250 km northeast of
Baghdad.
VOI
**
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 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
|
® 