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Kurdish MP asks Iraqi government to up
article 140 appropriations
16.2.2008
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February 16, 2008
Kirkuk, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
-- A legislator from the Kurdistan Coalition
(KC) bloc asked the central government on Saturday
to increase appropriations for article 140 of the
Iraqi constitution pertaining to normalization in
Kirkuk city.
"The current appropriations for article 140 are 160
million dollars (1 USD equals 1,122 Iraqi dinars)
out of Iraq's state budget of 41 billion dollars, a
sum that is not up to the required level," Khaled
Shawani said.
The KC, headed by Fouad Masoum, is the second
largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament with 55 out of
a total 275 seats.
"The higher committee on the application of article
140 has asked the Iraqi cabinet to allocate 800
billion Iraqi dinars for normalization in Kirkuk,"
Shawani, who represents the Kirkuk constituency at
the Iraqi parliament, said.
Article 140 provides for normalization of Kirkuk
through having back its Kurdish and Turcoman
inhabitants and repatriating the Arabs relocated in
the city during the former regime's time to their
original provinces in central and southern Iraq.
The article also calls for conducting a census to be
followed by a referendum to let the inhabitants
decide whether they would like Kirkuk to be annexed
to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region or having
it as an independent province.
These stages were supposed to end on December 31,
2007, a deadline that was later extended to six
months.
Kirkuk city is historically a Kurdish city
and it lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region, the population is a mix of
majority Kurds and minority of Arabs,www.ekurd.net
Christians and
Turkmen. lies 250 km northeast of Baghdad. Kurds
have a strong cultural and emotional attachment to Kirkuk, which they call "the Kurdish Jerusalem.", Kirkuk is historically a Kurdish city.
The article currently stipulates that all Arabs in
Kirkuk be returned to their original locations in
southern and central Iraqi areas, and formerly
displaced residents returned to Kirkuk.
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.
Under article 140 of Iraq’s constitution a
referendum must be held on whether the city secedes
to control of the Kurdistan region al government KRG.
A referendum, provided for in the Iraqi
constitution, was scheduled to be held by the end of
the past year on including the city into the
Kurdistan region, but the UN mediated to
extend its time to July 2008.
Information for this report was provided by VOI | Agencies
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