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Arab returnees from Kirkuk start
collecting compensations: minister
10.9.2007
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September
10, 2007
Kirkuk,
Iraq's border with Kurdistan region, -- An Iraqi
minister said she signed hundreds of checks at a
total value of 6 million dollars on Sunday as
compensations for the Arabs returning from Kirkuk to
their original areas.
"The Iraqi government allocated 200 million dollars
as compensations for Arabs in Kirkuk who wish to
return to their original provinces," said Nermin
Othman, the minister of environment and the official
in charge of financial affairs in the high committee
on the application of article 140 of the
constitution, during a press conference held in
Kurdistan's capital Erbil on Sunday.
Othman did not set a number of Arabs to receive the
compensations, noting her committee forwarded a
budget for the year 2008.
"We offered the budget for the year 2008 because we
believe that disbursing those compensations would
not end this year," she said.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution provides for
normalizing conditions in the oil-rich Kurdish city
of Kirkuk, lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region, 250 km north of the Iraqi capital
Baghdad, over three stages, starting with having the
displaced Iraqis residing there returned to their
original areas and compensated and ending with a
referendum by the end of 2007 on whether Kirkuk
should be annexed to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan
region.
Article 140 of Iraq’s constitution states that in
Kirkuk there must be a normalization (return of
expelled and deported citizens), a census and then a
referendum to be carried out no later than the end
of 2007. Eligible citizens will vote in the
referendum to decide whether they wish Kirkuk to be
part of the Kurdistan Region, or to be a separate
province outside it.
Implementation of article 140 of the Iraqi
constitution is pertinent to the overall security
situation of Iraq. Approved by the Shiite and Kurds,
Article 140 calls for reversing the "Arabization"
policy implemented under former Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein.
Othman said each Arab family wishing to return to
its original province would get 20 million Iraqi
dinars (roughly US$ 16,000) with a plot of land in
the city to which it would go and will have the
right to sell their property in Kirkuk and other
disputed areas.
"Moreover, the displaced Kurds wishing to return to
Kirkuk would have 10 million Iraqi dinars (roughly
US$ 8,000) per each family," she said.
The Iraqi officials said she does not have an
accurate number of the Arabs residing in Kirkuk and
willing to return to their original provinces.
"The number is growing day by day. There are some
who register for returning to their original
provinces while other Arabs
do not wish to return," she noted.
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.
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