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Kurds, Iraqis start joint patrols in
disputed area
19.5.2009
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May
19, 2009
SHEIKH BABA, Iraq,— For two groups that came
close to a shooting at each other nine months ago,
Iraqi and Kurdish forces (Peshmaraga) say they are
working surprisingly well in joint patrols launched
this month in a restive part of Iraq.
"We had some problems with each other," said Kurdish
police Colonel Riyadh Abbas, standing next to Iraqi
Army Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Mohammed, an Arab, in
a dusty village that is part of a fierce land
dispute pitting Arabs against minority Kurds.
Sheikh Baba lies less than 20 km from the town of
Khanaqin, where politicians were forced to intervene
last August to defuse a tense stand-off between
Kurdish troops and the Iraqi Army.
"We sat down and talked. Now look, we are working
together like brothers," said Mohammed, gesturing to
camouflaged Kurdish police chatting with mostly Arab
Iraqi soldiers.
But such professions of newfound cooperation come
against a backdrop of increasing ethnosectarian
tension in some northern areas struggling with a
stubborn insurgency.
Minority Kurds claim parts of Diyala and other
provinces bordering their largely autonomous
northern region as their own -- a call rejected by
the Arab-led government in Baghdad.
In Nineveh province,www.ekurd.net
the most violent corner
of Iraq today, Kurds have refused to participate in
a new Arab-led provincial government, and several
Kurdish towns vow they will not respect the new
government in the war-shattered provincial seat,
Mosul.
The province remains on edge as the Arab governor
stays away from Kurdish-dominated areas and Kurds
and Arabs stage protests.
Political turmoil has also struck Diyala, where the
new local government made of Sunnis, Shi'ites and
Kurds has already sparred over power. On Monday, a
Sunni Arab council member was arrested; the reasons
for the arrest were not immediately clear.
LAND GRAB
While violence has fallen across much of the rest of
the Iraq, Diyala has proved hard to pacify, partly
because its palm groves and remote desert villages
make good hideouts.
Active groups include Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and
the nationalist Army of al-Nakshabani who carry out
a growing number of sniper attacks on officials,www.ekurd.net
tribal leaders and U.S.
troops.
Disputes over territory have fanned Diyala's
persistent instability by preventing it being
effectively policed.
Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab, forced Kurds out of
disputed areas and moved Arabs in to cement his
rule. Kurdish Peshmerga troops came to police such
areas after he was deposed in 2003.
Kurd-Arab tensions began to spike when the Shi'ite
Arab-led government moved the Iraqi army into
disputed areas last summer.
Diyala mirrors a wider dispute between Baghdad and
Kurdish leaders over land and massive oil reserves,
a feud that may threaten security as U.S. forces
prepare to withdraw.
"Until the Iraqi government draws the line that
delineates what's Kurdistan and what's not, any
movement by security forces on either side is going
to be seen as a land grab," said U.S. Captain Gabe
Austin, whose troops work around Khanaqin.
In Diyala, military officials hope the new joint
patrols will help ease ethnic tensions and improve
security. But many villagers doubt the sincerity of
the new cooperation.
"It's all for show," said Abdul Karim Suleiman, a
Kurdish farmer, whose village was searched by Iraqi
and Kurdish troops.
"They're not together. There is real hate towards
Kurds. The Iraqi army smashed up my office when
searching it before."
Hamid Aziz, an Arab, had similar complaints about
Kurdish forces, who he said had kicked in his door
in the sandy village of Aeun.
"Inside their hearts, the Kurdish forces won't work
with Arabs. They want to take this land," he said.
The Diyala district, which includes a string of villages
and some of Iraq's oil reserves, is home to about
175,000 people, most of them Kurdish Shiites.
Kurdish forces was located in Diyala to protect the
Kurdish civilians in the district.
During the Arabisation policy of Saddam Hussein in
the 1980s, a large number of Kurdish Shiites were
displaced by force from Khanaqin. They started
returning after the fall of Saddam in 2003.
In June 2006, the local council of Khanaqin proposed
that the district be integrated into the autonomous
Kurdistan region in northern Iraq.
Khanaqin sits on the border of
Diyala and the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region. In summer 2008, Iraqi security
forces and Kurdish troops nearly came to blows in Khanaqin after Maliki sent
soldiers there to push out Kurdistan forces who for years had secured the mainly
Kurdish city. After weeks of growing tension, a deal was struck to allow Kurdish
forces to return to Khanaqin.
Kurdistan's government says oil-rich Khanaqin should be part of its
semi-autonomous region, which it hopes to expand in a referendum later this
year. In the meantime, Khanaqin and other so-called disputed areas remain
targets of Sunni Arab insurgents opposed to Kurdish expansion and vowing to hold
onto land seized during ex-dictator Saddam Hussein's efforts to "Arabize" the
region.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to
the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk city
and other disputed areas like Khanaqin.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, Reuters
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