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Kirkuk Dispute Close to Boiling Point
19.3.2008
By Caroline Tosh in London and Zaineb Ahmed in Iraq (ICR
No. 250, 18-Mar-08)
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Analysts say political agreement must be reached to
defuse escalating tensions over contested city’s
status.
March 19, 2008
Kirkuk, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region.
Last month, a United Nations envoy likened the
struggle between Kurds and Arabs for control of the
oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq to a
“ticking time bomb''.
Staffan de Mistura, who is helping broker a
settlement between Baghdad and Erbil on future
arrangements for Kirkuk, said in an interview for
the Bloomberg news agency that he had just a few
months left to solve what he termed “the mother of
all crises'' in Iraq.
“If that takes place, we will have contributed
substantially to avoiding a new conflict at the
worst possible time,'' said the Swedish diplomat in
the report.
The autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG,
would like to see the return of Kurds who were
expelled from Kirkuk as part of former Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein’s “Arabisation” policy, under which
the Kurds – whom he viewed as politically suspect –
were driven out of oil-rich areas of the north and
replaced by a smaller number of Arabs.
The Kurds say they have a historical claim to Kirkuk
city, and that they lost a great deal of property
and land there under Saddam.
The KRG is calling for a referendum to decide the
future of the city and its surrounding oil fields,
which lie outside Kurdistan’s three provinces of
Erbil, Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk.
Article 140 of the 2005 Iraqi constitution contains
a provision for just such a referendum to decide the
fate of the city and its environs.
Under this article, the authorities must first
achieve "normalisation" – taken to mean the reversal
or mitigation of “Arabisation” policy – and hold a
census in Kirkuk. The government must complete a
series of steps set out in the Transitional
Administrative Law – an interim constitution dating
from 2004. These include restitution for people who
were forced out; resettling or otherwise
accommodating people who were moved into the area by
Saddam; and remedying unjust boundary changes
carried out by his regime.
While no up-to-date statistics exist on the ethnic
and religious make-up of the province of Kirkuk
(also known as Tamim), Kurds are thought to be the
largest ethnic group, and they hold the most seats
on the provincial council.
But the idea that the city could be incorporated
into an expanded Kurdish region is bitterly opposed
by Iraqi Arabs, who do not want to cede control of
the city and its oil to an autonomous Kurdish
entity. The area is thought to hold some 12 per cent
of Iraq's confirmed oil reserves.
Kirkuk’s significant Turkoman population, which has
its own historical claims on the city, is also
against absorption into the KRG and would rather see
the city granted some kind of special status.
A decision was made in December to delay the
referendum until June this year, partly because of
growing violence in Kirkuk.
As the Kirkuk crisis simmers, relations between the
KRG capital Erbil and Baghdad have been further
strained by disagreements over the funding of the
Peshmerga or Kurdish military,www.ekurd.net
and over oil deals
signed by the Kurds without reference to Baghdad.
The Iraqi oil ministry claims these arrangements are
unconstitutional and is reportedly threatening to
blacklist the foreign companies involved, preventing
them pursuing oil contracts with Baghdad.
The UN has now been drafted in to help settle
disagreements over Kirkuk and other matters ahead of
a plebiscite designed to “determine the will of…
citizens” with regard to the city and other disputed
territories.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s neighbours look on with keen
interest. If the KRG were to absorb Kirkuk, the
consolidation this would mean for the entity could
have implications for Kurdish minorities in Turkey,
Syria and Iran.
Ankara is fiercely protective of Kirkuk’s Turkomans,
and also fearful that Kurdistan could use the added
oil wealth to make a future bid for independence –
something it would oppose given the implications for
its home-grown Kurdish separatist movement.
Were there to be an actual conflict over Kirkuk, it
now seems less and less certain whether Kurdistan
could count on the backing of Washington, formerly a
close ally. The United States was notably slow to
react when Turkey breached Iraqi sovereignty by
launching incursions into the north of the country
last month, in pursuit of rebels of the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party or PKK.
KURDS ACCUSED OF
“OVERREACHING”
While there is some sympathy for the Kurds’ ambition
to secure greater control of resources so as to help
prevent a repeat of their past suffering, a recent
wave of articles abroad has accused Kurdistan of
overplaying its hand.
US analyst Michael O’Hanlon suggested in a piece for
the Washington Post last month that by laying claim
to Kirkuk and independently developing oil fields,
Kurds were “making a major mistake”.
“They should rethink their approach both out of
fairness to the United States, which has given them
a chance to help build a post-Hussein Iraq, and in
the interests of [both] the Kurds and their
neighbours,” he said.
Other analysts suggested that US support for
Kurdistan has been ebbing in recent months.
“I think there’s a feeling that in Washington the
Kurds have got a good deal in Iraq and that they
need to focus on that and not be reaching for more,”
observed Daniel Serwer of the United States
Institute of Peace, USIP.
Joost Hiltermann of the Brussels-based think tank
the International Crisis Group, ICG, thought that
while the Kurds had a historic opportunity to press
forward, that window was now starting to close as US
support waned.
As the US attempts to rebuild Iraq, it needs to
persuade the political winners of recent years to
cede some of their power so that excluded groups can
be drawn in, he said. That suggests that the Kurds
as well as the powerful Shia parties would have to
give some ground.
But that may be easier said than done. Kurdish
politics have their own internal dynamics, and the
intense competition between the two big players —
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK, and the
Kurdistan Democratic Party, KDP — may be spurring
them on to make greater demands.
"Kurdish leaders sometimes play to the gallery of
their own regional politics," said BBC journalist
Quil Lawrence, author of “Invisible Nation: How the
Kurds’ Quest for Statehood is Shaping Iraq and the
Middle East”.
"When they go to Baghdad they need to play tough and
say, ‘Kirkuk is our beating heart’, because the
opposing Kurdish party just came to Baghdad and
said, ‘Kirkuk is our Jerusalem’," he explained.
Kurdish journalist and Middle East expert Dr Rebwar
Fatah doubts the Kurds will give up on their claim
to the city,www.ekurd.net
unless Kirkuk’s
population itself chooses to reject annexation. “It
would be very difficult if Kirkuk accepted not being
part of the Kurdish region,” he admitted.
Fatah dismissed the notion that Kurds are demanding
too much, saying they merely wanted security and
control over their own resources.
If the city did not become part of the Kurdish
region, he said, “Kurds would eventually be pushed
out of Kirkuk.”
He drew a clear analogy with another
mixed-population northern city claimed by the Kurds,
noting, “Historically, Mosul was a Kurdish area, but
now the east part is Kurdish and the west part
Arab.”
Some argue that Kurdistan is being unfairly
penalised for securing favourable terms when the
constitution was being drafted.
“[Some Shia] think Kurdistan did too well in the
negotiations over the constitution of 2005 and have
been trying to rein them in,” said Professor Brendan
O'Leary of the University of Pennsylvania, who acted
as advisor to the KRG on the constitution.
O’Leary denied that Kurdish aspirations were driven
by a desire to get rich from Kirkuk’s oil, a view
promulgated by certain politicians and media
reports.
“It’s false to allege that the dispute in Kirkuk is
about oil, and it’s also equally false to allege
that the Kurds are planning to seize the oil fields
and then declare independence,” he said.
“Irrespective of the outcome of the referendum,
there is an agreement that the revenues of Kirkuk
will be distributed across Iraq as a whole.”
Indeed, Kurds often stress that the Kirkuk question
is about people, not oil, pointing out that they
currently receive 17 per cent of the country’s oil
revenue and would receive just 12 per cent from
Kirkuk.
REFERENDUM LOOKS SET FOR
FURTHER DELAY
Observers say that the longer the status of Kirkuk
hangs in the balance, the more the tensions will
grow.
Narmeen Osman, the Iraqi environment minister and a
member of the Iraqi Committee for the Implementation
of Article 140, said the federal government had been
slow to implement the terms of the article "because
of political pressures" from inside and outside
Iraq.
There are widespread fears that come June, the
referendum will be delayed once again. Political
elements in government with close ties with Iran are
likely to be obstructive, while Kurdistan’s fear of
alienating Turkey could also cause a delay.
Turkey’s importance to Iraq was seen earlier this
month when Iraqi president and PUK leader Jalal
Talabani led an official delegation on a visit to
Ankara.
During the visit, which was held in part to restore
normal relations between Ankara and Erbil after the
Turkish military incursion to hunt down PKK
guerrillas last month, Talabani urged Turkish
businesses to invest in the country.
A source who accompanied the Iraqi delegation to
Ankara this month told IWPR that Turkish friendship
was vital to Iraqi Kurdistan’s future.
“Without a relationship with Turkey, Kurdistan can
get nowhere,” said the source. “Turkey is its gate
to Europe and Washington; its only breathing space.”
From a practical point of view, it seems very little
progress on implementing those elements of Article
140 which should precede a referendum.
“I don't think that there will be any referendum.
There has not been much progress on the three stages
of normalisation. [First] there has to be
compensation and moving of people who have been
settled for up to 35 years,” said Fatah.
He argued that delaying the referendum had created a
vacuum in Kirkuk, and had also served to isolate the
KRG further from the population, who see it as
self-serving and unwilling to tackle the problem
head-on.
“[The Kurdish authorities] have tried to manage the
problem, not to do anything about it,” he said.
Like other observers, Fatah predicts continuing
resistance to Article 140 from Arabs both inside
Iraq and from other regional states.
Hiltermann thinks obstruction from the Baghdad
government could prevent the referendum being held,
and agrees that very little progress had been made
with the normalisation process.
“Most Kurds who were expelled from Kirkuk in the
previous era have not returned, mostly because there
are no resources there for them… so they haven’t
come back. Many of the Arabs who were brought there
by the previous regimes are also still there and
probably will stay there,” he said.
Serwer agreed that much still had to be done,
saying, “There are a lot of complicated issues –
technical issues that need to be resolved if the
referendum is to go ahead in June, and I’m not
seeing the kind of intensive preparations that would
enable them to go ahead in June.”
However, O’Leary thought there was still plenty of
time to prepare.
“I don’t think it’s all taken place at full speed,
but there are funds available to assist in
normalisation, and many families have taken
advantage of those and some families are waiting,”
he said.
WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN NEXT?
As the referendum deadline looms, politicians are
divided on how to proceed.
One Iraqi government adviser who did not want to be
named said he believed the pressure could be eased
by embarking on the normalisation process, but
putting the plebiscite on hold for the time being.
“Work on the normalisation process, and put the
issue of the referendum to one side,” he said. “Even
if five per cent of the process was done, it would
serve as a confidence-building measure.”
Narmeen Osman, however, worried that a second
postponement would merely inflame relations between
Erbil and Baghdad.
"The solution for the problem is the implementation
of the article — normalise, conduct censuses and
then referendum,” she said.
O’Leary pointed out that while it would be better to
engage all the parties concerned, it would be
possible to go ahead without the support of the
Baghdad government.
“I think, in principle, there is no reason why the
referendum could not be held jointly by the Kirkuk
governorate itself – at present the majority of
Kurdistan-allied parties are on it – with the
Kurdistan Regional Government,” he said.
However, there are fears that such a unilateral move
could make an already difficult situation worse.
Izzat al-Shahbandar, a member of parliament from the
Iraqi National List, believes further negotiations
are needed between Kurdistan and the federal
government to iron out any disagreements in advance.
"It is not enough to…normalise relations, and
conduct a referendum that has supports and
opponents. Otherwise, the day of June 6, 2008 is
going to be a time bomb."
NEED FOR POLITICAL
CONSENSUS
Observers say the reluctance of certain Iraqi
political forces to comply with the constitutional
requirement to hold a referendum demonstrates a
failure to engage all sides in the process from the
outset.
Lawrence pointed out that the current obstruction to
implementing the constitution was in part because
the Sunni Arabs had largely boycotted the drafting
process, and therefore consider the end result "null
and void".
"The basic problem right now is the constitution,
which was written without genuine Sunni input," he
said.
"The Sunnis have a legitimate gripe in that they
didn't really sign off on the constitution, they
were promised that there would be time after the
constitution passed to amend it, and correct it from
their opinion. But the parts they’d like to scrap
are exactly what the Kurds say are ‘red-lines’ for
them [and must] stay in."
Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman says it is
imperative to negotiate broad political backing for
any solution in Kirkuk itself, regardless of the
outcome of any referendum.
“Even if you get a majority in Kirkuk with the
referendum, then clearly you have to make a deal
with the Arabs and Turkomans so that they will be
not against it, so that you could implement it,” he
said.
Others continue to argue that territorial disputes
should be decided through negotiations and political
agreement, rather than by a referendum at this
stage.
“It can be that any agreement that results from such
negotiations could be ratified in a popular
referendum,” said Hiltermann.
Establishing a broad consensus between Iraq’s main
parties could also decrease the likelihood of
eternal actors muscling in.
And as a growing engagement with the political
process emerges in Iraq, there are signs that an
agreement on Kirkuk may be a possibility.
“My sense is that among both Kurds and Arabs in
Iraq, you have a much broader acceptance of the
constitution than you had a year ago. People are
much more willing to take their problems into
parliament, into provincial councils, to the press,
than they were once upon a time,” said Serwer.
FEARS OF CONFLICT
DOWNPLAYED
Despite the rising trend of violence since 2003,
analysts do not believe that Kirkuk is headed for an
all-out local civil war.
O’Leary disputed the media’s characterisation of
Kirkuk as “a tinderbox waiting to explode”.
“I don’t think that the Kurdistan government will
provoke violence,” he said, adding that the KRG had
shown a commitment to negotiating by constitutional
and democratic means.
“It’s important to note that the Kirkuk governorate
is already in effect under the security blanket of
the Peshmerga and therefore I wouldn’t expect any
change on the ground,” he said.
According to the analyst, if the dispute over Kirkuk
were to intensify, the Baghdad government would be
unlikely to deploy troops against the Peshmerga, who
are better trained and more cohesive than Arab units
of the Iraqi army.
Washington would be “foolish” to permit any Turkish
intervention on behalf of the Turkomans of Kirkuk,
he added.
The KRG and the government in Baghdad have also
shown a commitment to come to an agreement through
negotiations, rather than violence.
"There are meetings and negotiations between the
central government and the Kurdish leadership and
both sides agree that the issues should be solved in
peaceful ways," said Osman.
And with the UN-assisted negotiating process just
getting under way, it seems far too early to talk of
civil war.
“If [the talks] fail, then you will get real trouble
in these areas over oil and other issues, resources
— oil and gas mostly – population growth, and that
could lead to civil war, but we are far from that
and we are certainly able to prevent that,” said
Hiltermann.
While Serwer sees potential for violence over the
issue of Kirkuk, he does not expect conflict on a
large scale.
“Kirkukis are quite determined not to be the theatre
for the broader conflict between Kurds and Arabs in
Iraq,” he said.
Caroline Tosh is an IWPR editor in London. Zaineb
Ahmed is an IWPR-trained journalist in Baghdad.
iwpr net
Copyright, respective author or news agency.
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