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Last chance to restore Kirkuk
10.3.2011
By Raber Y. Aziz - ekurd.net |
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March 10, 2011
The Kurdish leadership and the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) have no assurances that the article
140 of the Iraqi constitution – which they believe
is the guarantee for the restoration of Kirkuk to
Kurdistan - will be implemented. After the 2003
toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iraq constitution was
redrafted and approved by the parliament. Article
140 was supposed to be implemented by the end of
2007 whereby the squatting Arabs would have to go
back to their original places in central and
southern Iraq and Kurdish and Turkmen families
expelled from the province during the Saddam-era
would return to Kirkuk – the first phase of the
article, Normalization. But four years after the
deadline, the article has not been implemented and
the Arabs say it is dead and even go further to
demand the annulment of the article.
The current situation in Iraq in general, caused by
demonstrations and protests, and Kirkuk in
particular, prepared the ground for the (KRG) to
send Peshmarga forces to Kirkuk and other disputed
areas to protect the Kurdish and other minorities’
families from insurgent attacks. I believe this is
the last chance for the KRG and Kurdish leadership
to incorporate Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region or
else they will have to say farewell to Kirkuk
forever.
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Raber Younes Aziz is the Managing Editor of
Kurdistan News Agency - AKnews. |
Because, if the KRG pull back those forces and leave
the Kurds in for the insurgents and the chauvinist
Arabs of the area, many Kurdish families who have
already had too much of threats and intimidation, on
the one hand, and the indifference of the KRG to
protect them on the other, will lose hope and leave
those areas for the other Kurdish populated areas
closer to the Kurdish cities of Erbil, Sulaimaniyah
and Dohuk to save their lives. We have seen and
heard from the media how Kurdish families from
Jalawla and Sa’diya towns have fled their home after
being attacked and threatened by militant Arabs.
Kurds of Jalawla and Sa’diya left their towns
because of the threats of the Arab insurgents and
inability, if not indifference, of the Iraqi army
and police to protect them, while those of Kirkuk
leave the city because of the indifference of the
KRG toward the Kirkuk issue after they returned to
the city in 2003 to reclaim their properties
confiscated during the former Baath regime.
The Arabs of Kirkuk know this very well, and it is
for this very reason that they call for the
withdrawal of those Peshmarga forces. The presence
of the Peshmarga in those areas give new hope to the
Kurdish families of those areas and their resolve to
remain in their areas is renewed. However, the
withdrawal of Peshmarga will deal a blow on the
Kurds who will lose heart because the KRG deserted
them for a second time after they withdrew from
those areas to hand over responsibility to the joint
forces.
Essentially, the intention of the Arabs in
postponing the population census so many times to be
followed by a referendum to decide the fate of
Kirkuk, or in a wider context their opposition to
the implementation of Article 140 is to make the
Kurds lose patience and strength and leave the
province in hopelessness. These intentions came to
full view when a member of the Arab council in
Kirkuk said the Kurds have to go back to “their own
cities and leave Kirkuk”! This, not only indicates
that the Arabs do not intend to yield to the
implementation of Article 140 to go back to their
original places, but they are not even content with
the current situation and want the Kurds to leave
the city to go back to “their own cities”. He went
further to say Erbil, Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk are the
“north of Iraq” – instead of Kurdistan - and for all
Iraqis. The problem here is not that Kurdistan is
for all Iraqis, this is true. But the problem is the
designation of Kurdistan “north of Iraq” because
this term was only used by the Baath regime and this
a flat rejection of the federal system of Iraq. The
northern Kurdish region has been established in the
Iraqi constitution as “Kurdistan” and as a federal
region.
The Kurdistan Region, therefore, must seriously work
for the incorporation of Kirkuk to Kurdistan and
bind the withdrawal of the Peshmarga forces with the
implementation of the article 140. The Peshmarga
forces can by no means be pulled back from hoe
areas. The excuse of the presence of those forces in
Kirkuk and the disputed areas has to be the
implementation of the article 140 of the Iraqi
constitution, not protecting the Kurds and other
minorities because this is contingent upon the
security situation. Once the security situation
improves, the credibility of this justification will
come under question.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish leadership needs to engage in
serious talks with the Turkmen of Kirkuk and try to
understand each other to converge their views. They,
too, were subjected to oppression during the reign
of Saddam and their properties were confiscated or
were expelled from the oil-rich city. The Kurds have
to give assurances to the Turkmen that their
existence alongside the Kurds and later as part of
the Kurdistan region all their cultural and
political rights will reserved. It has to be
explained for them that upon the incorporation of
Kirkuk into Kurdistan,www.ekurd.netthe Turkmen will become the
second largest ethnic groups and second influential
group in Kurdistan, while they are not even the
third influential group in Iraq. They have to be
assured that they will have a real involvement in
the political process and governing Kurdistan.
This, of course, does not mean that the original
Arabs of Kirkuk be ignored. The Arabs, like the
Kurds and Turkmen lived in Kirkuk before the
Arabization campaign begin. But dialogue with the
Arabs of Kirkuk has to be narrowed to the originals
of the area not those who claim to represent the
Arabs of Kirkuk and who have nothing to offer
instead of hatred on the media channels. They have
to go back to the areas from where Saddam brought
them. I am certain that after the implementation of
article 140, the original Arabs of Kirkuk, will live
peacefully with the Kurds and Turkmen of the city
just like they did in the past.
Raber Younes Aziz is the Managing Editor of
Kurdistan News Agency (AKnews). You may visit Aziz's
blog at: Raberblog.blogspot.com
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