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Iraqi Kurds will fail to expand Kurdistan
region
30.3.2010 |
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March
30, 2010
Mosul, Northwest
Iraq,
— Iraqi Kurds will fail in bid to grab more land and
add it to their semi-independent enclave, the
Governor of the Province of Ninewa said.
Atheel Al-Nujaifi said major political blocs in the
country were unanimous in attitude that none of the
major Kurdish demands should be met.
Nujaifi did not spell out those demands, but the
Kurds have repeatedly demanded annexing the oil-rich
city of Kirkuk and large swathes of Nineveh Province
of which Mosul is the capital as well as having a
big say in developing oil fields in their Kurdistan
region.
“All the blocs have identical stands vis-à-vis
Kurdish demands. No bloc is willing to give them
absolute guarantees,” Nujaifi said.
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Atheel Al-Nujaifi, the Governor of the Province of Ninewa |
He said in fact there
was “not even a possibility for these blocs to have
those demands under discussion. Therefore, they (the
Kurds) are going to lose.”
The Iraqiya bloc of Ayad Allawi beat its rival State
of Law Alliance of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki
just by two seats.
Nujaifi and many in the predominantly Sunni Province
of Nineveh strongly support Allawi’s secular bloc.
However, he said both major blocs, one of which will
eventually form the new government, were in
agreement that Kurdish influence and expansionist
moves must be checked.
The Kurds now control three of the country’s 19
provinces – Erbil, Duhok and Sulaimaniyah.
But their Kurdish alliance, dominated by two of the
region’s most powerful parties, lost to Allawi in
Kirkuk,www.ekurd.netthe
city they want to add to their autonomous Kurdish
region.
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." Kurds see it as the rightful and
perfect capital of an autonomous Kurdistan state.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to
the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk city
and other disputed areas through having back its
Kurdish 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 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.
The last ethnic-breakdown census in Iraq was
conducted in 1957, well before Saddam began his
program to move Arabs to Kirkuk. That count showed
178,000 Kurds, 48,000 Turkomen, 43,000 Arabs and
10,000 Assyrian-Chaldean Christians living in the
city.
Mosul, capital city of Ninewa province in Iraq, near
the border with Kurdistan region, lies 405 km north of Baghdad. The Yazidis are primarily ethnic Kurds located
near Mosul. Some 350,000 Kurdish Yazidis live in villages
around Mosul near Kurdistan autonomous region
border.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution states that
there will be a referendum in the areas bordering
the Kurdistan autonomous region, including the
northern oil city of Kirkuk, so that people can
choose whether to be ruled by the central government
or the Kurds.
Copyright, respective
author or news agency,
azzaman.com | ekurd net | Agencies
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