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Kirkuk: Kurds take time considering
Turkomans demands
26.2.2008
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February 26, 2008
Kirkuk, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
-- The Kurdish group in the Kirkuk provincial
council asked for more time to respond to demands
forwarded by the Turkomans as a prerequisite to end
its boycot, including higher positions and the
official use of the Turkoman language, a Turcoman
member of the council said.
"Members of the Kirkuk Taakhi (Brotherhood) List
asked for more timed to discuss the Turcoman
demands," Ali Mahdi told VOI, noting a second round
of negotiations would be held between the two sides
on Sunday in order to reach a final settlement of
these demands.
The Turkomans suspended their membership in the
Kirkuk provincial council, demanding the
distribution of top positions among the Turkomans,www.ekurd.net
Arabs and Kurds in the
council by 32% for each group, the recognition of
the Turcoman language as an official one and
removing the "illegal" excesses in the city of
Kirkuk.
The Kirkuk provincial council chief, Rizkar Ali, had
said that members of the Taakhi list would hold a
meeting on Monday with the Turkomans to discuss
means to end their boycott of the council.
The Kirkuk local council comprises 41 elected
members, 26 of them belong to the Taakhi, the list
set up by the two main Kurdish parties – Iraqi
President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) and Iraqi Kurdistan Region President
Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
The Arabs occupy six seats, the Iraqi Turcoman Front
(ITF) occupies eight seats while the Islamic Party
of Iraqi Turkomans occupies only one.
The Arabs and Turkomans had suspended their
membership in the local council in April 2005 over
differences with the Kurds but terminated their
boycott late last year and received the Kirkuk
deputy governor post and other positions after an
agreement with the Taakhi list to distribute posts
by 32 percent among all lists.
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.
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.
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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