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Iraq election may leave status of Kirkuk
uncertain
13.3.2010
By Sam Dagher |
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March
13, 2010
KIRKUK, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
— Early election results appear to reflect a
hardening of divisions between Kurds, Arabs and
Turkmens in northern Iraq, potentially complicating
efforts by the United States and the United Nations
to forge a compromise over the oil-rich city of
Kirkuk — a prize claimed by both Iraq’s
semiautonomous Kurdistan region and the central
government.
According to unofficial results released earlier
this week, the Kurdistan Alliance, a coalition of
the two ruling Kurdish parties, received more than
50 percent of the votes cast in Tamim, the province
that includes Kirkuk. Iraq’s electoral commission
was scheduled to release partial results over the
weekend that were not expected to differ
significantly from that outcome.
“This means the majority believe Kirkuk belongs to
Kurdistan,” said Khalid Shwani, a Parliament member
and a Kurd, who is expected to handily secure a
second term.
Yet, the votes of Sunni Arabs and Turkmens —
estimated at about 30 percent of the total — went
primarily to the Iraqiya slate led nationally by
Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister, and
particularly for candidates with an uncompromising
stand on preventing Kirkuk from joining the
Kurdistan region.
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Kirkuk city is historically a Kurdish city and it
lies just south border of the Kurdistan autonomous
region, Kurds have a strong cultural and emotional
attachment to Kirkuk, which they call "the Kurdish
Jerusalem." Kurds see it as the rightful and
perfect capital of an autonomous Kurdistan state.
The former regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
had 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. Photo: Ayman
Oghanna for The NY Times |
Mr. Allawi has called for a “special situation” for
Kirkuk that would keep it under Baghdad’s control,
but give extra powers to a local government equally
divided among all groups.
But that approach is flatly rejected by the Kurds,
who now say their new alliance — which will play a
pivotal role in forming a future Iraqi government
—has a mandate to expedite Kirkuk’s entry into the
Kurdistan region in accordance with the
Constitution’s Article 140. Mr. Shwani said that
this would be a central demand by Kurds to join any
prospective government.
One of his coalition’s priorities would be
compensation and restitution of property rights for
the tens of thousands of Kurds who were banished
under the “Arabization” campaign of the former
Baathist government, and who returned to Kirkuk
after 2003, Mr. Shwani said.
He said that about 100,000 Kurds — Arabs and
Turkmens said many more — had returned to Kirkuk
since 2003. A building frenzy is under way in
Kurdish neighborhoods, and Kurds are expanding into
predominantly Arab and Turkmen areas. They now
dominate the local government and the police.
Mr. Shwani said that at the very least, his
coalition would fight to establish ownership rights
for squatters, including many Kurds in Kirkuk.
The Kurdish coalition and particularly Mr. Shwani’s
party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, are under
tremendous pressure to deliver on Kirkuk, given the
challenge from a new splinter movement called Gorran,
meaning “change,” a new Kurdish party that is
challenging the entrenched — and it says corrupt —
order.
Unofficial results from Dahuk, Erbil and Sulaimaniya
— the three provinces that constitute the Kurdistan
region — showed the Kurdistan Democratic Party in
the lead, followed by Gorran and Mr. Shwani’s party.
Mr. Shwani argued that it was not only Kurds in
Kirkuk who wanted to be part of the Kurdistan
region. That desire was shared by Turkmens and
Arabs, he said, who either voted directly for the
Kurdish coalition or allied slates.
Officials in the Allawi camp scoffed at that, saying
that the former prime minister’s strong showing
posed a new counterweight to Kurdish influence. “We
have restored equilibrium in Kirkuk,” said Mazen
Abdul-Jabbar, who headed Mr. Allawi’s campaign
there.
Others had stronger words. One of the front-runners
on Mr. Allawi’s slate, Arshad al-Salihi, compared
the Kurdish presence in Kirkuk to Israeli
settlements.
Mr. Salihi, a leader in the Iraqi Turkmen Front,
said about Kirkuk joining Iraqi Kurdistan, “They
have to kill us first for it to happen.”
He said that he was the target of an assassination
attempt last month and that American officials
persuaded him to play down the episode so as not to
provoke his followers. He now wears a bulletproof
vest.
His sentiments were echoed on the streets. “He will
stop Kirkuk from going to Kurdistan because Kirkuk
is for Turks,” said Sondous Ahmed, 25, a Turkmen,
who had voted with her brother for Mr. Salihi.
In former insurgent strongholds west of the city,
where polling places were blown up in the previous
elections, Sunni Arabs came out in droves to cast
their votes, laughing off threats from a group
linked to Al Qaeda.
A dozen people interviewed in the central market of
Hawija, a town just west of Kirkuk, said they voted
for Mr. Allawi’s slate because he was “nonsectarian”
and would “keep Iraq united.”
Sheik Hussein al-Jubouri heads Hawija’s district
council and commands a 9,000-strong force — part of
the American-backed Awakening Councils,www.ekurd.netwhich have
yet to be integrated into the Iraqi government’s
security forces. He backed Mr. Allawi’s slate and
held large gatherings before the elections preaching
to tribesmen to silence their guns and “give
politics a chance.”
Mr. Jubouri said that Mr. Allawi’s bloc should
insist on another election in Kirkuk, a position
seconded by leaders of the influential Obeid tribe
in Kirkuk, who also backed Mr. Allawi.
A compromise in last year’s election law allowed
voting to take place in Kirkuk with the proviso that
a special parliamentary committee would be given a
year after the elections to examine irregularities
in the voter register.
Sheik Abdullah Sami al-Obeidi, one of the leaders of
the Obeid tribe and a member of the Kirkuk
provincial council, accused Kurdish parties of
issuing fake food ration cards for almost 62,000
families. The cards are used as the basis of the
voting register.
Mr. Shwani, the Kurdish candidate, denied the
accusations, and said his coalition had lodged at
least 60 complaints about the voting in Hawija, most
of them concerning male heads of households voting
on behalf of their wives and children.
Tribal leaders in Hawija confirmed that tribal
customs prohibited “young women” from venturing out
of their homes to vote.
All of this could delay definitive election results
in Kirkuk.
Turhan Abdul-Rahman, Kirkuk’s deputy police chief,
said the situation was highly volatile, given that
all political parties were armed. “American forces
in Kirkuk are the only counterbalance,” he said.
The United States military, which keeps about 5,000
soldiers in Kirkuk, worked to try to guarantee a
safe election. American soldiers stood outside
polling centers, patrolled the streets and operated
joint checkpoints. Even before the vote, American
officials warned political leaders to tone down
campaigning, which threatened on several occasions
to escalate into armed clashes.
Col. Larry Swift said the American presence in
Kirkuk had a “calming effect” on all political
players.
“Impartiality is our biggest asset here,” he said.
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
Nytimes com
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