|
Thousands of Iraqi Arabs paid to leave the
Kurdish city of Kirkuk
27.9.2007
|
|
|
|
September
27, 2007
Kirkuk, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
-- Thousands of Iraqi Arabs have accepted financial
compensation to leave the northern Kurdish city of
Kirkuk, which leaders of the autonomous Kurdistan
region are seeking to control, a minister said
Thursday.
Around 2,000 Arabs living there had agreed to return
to their home provinces under an initiative launched
by the committee in charge of overseeing relations
in Kirkuk, Environment Minister Nermeen Othman said.
"The supreme committee... finished approving 2,000
applications submitted by Arab residents in Kirkuk
who want to receive compensation of 15,000 dollars
(10,600 euros) to return to their original residence
places," she said.
Technical problems related to changing ID registers
had prevented the payment of cheques so far, but the
applicants had been approved and would be paid in
the next few days, she said.
According to Othman, herself a Kurd, a budget of 200
million dollars has been allocated by the Iraq
government to pay the compensation packages of those
willing to leave the city.
Tensions between Kirkuk's Kurdish, Arab, Christians
and Turkmen communities have risen ahead of a
constitutionally mandated popular referendum on the
oil-rich city's future, which is supposed to be held
this year.
One million Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens live in Kirkuk
although the exact split between the communities is
not officially known.
Kirkuk's Kurds, who were chased out by Saddam
Hussein in the 1970s but returned in force following
his overthrow and now effectively control the city,
would like to see it join the Kurdistan Regional
Government.
The new Iraqi constitution adopted after the US-led
liberation in March 2003 stipulates that Kirkuk's
status must be sorted out before the end of 2007 by
a referendum.
No date has been fixed for the referendum, which the
Kurds have been strongly encouraging as they are
confident of winning a majority, but which Baghdad
says cannot be held until after a proper census.
Kirkuk's Sunni Arabs -- including many brought to
the area in the 1970s during Saddam-era ethnic
cleansing -- and its centuries-old Turkmen community
want to postpone the vote until the dust of war
clears.
The political stalemate is a dilemma for US
policy-makers trying to balance their support for
Iraq's constitution with their oft-expressed hope
that Kirkuk's future can be settled through
consensus.
AFP
* Kirkuk city is a
Kurdish 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
|
® 