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Massoud Barzani: Article 140 must be
enacted if Kurdistan is to stay part of Iraq
5.6.2011 |
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June
5, 2011
ERBIL-Hewlêr,
Kurdistan region 'Iraq', — The president of Iraq’s
Kurdistan Region, Massoud Barzani, has warned on
Saturday from possibility of what he described as
“explosion” at any moment, in the event of
non-implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi
Constitution, pointing out to the existence of the
concept of participation in power, according to an
interview he gave to the Middle East newspaper.
Barzani said on Saturday that Kurds will not be interested in separation
from Iraq as long as their rights, as laid out in
the Iraqi constitution, are provided for.
“The implementation of Article 140 has been delayed
for a long time, and its implementation must be
achieved, if everybody wants to see a stable Iraq,
and if the historic fraternal relationship to
continue among the Arabs, the Kurds and the Turkomen,
and for the benefit of building a natural
relationship between the (Kurdistan) Region and
Baghdad,” Barzani stressed, “warning that
non-settlement of the said problem means that the
situation would face ‘explosion’ at any moment.”
“The issue of Kirkuk, being a Kurdistan issue, is
settled historically and geographically, but we
accepted Article 140, pending
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The president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, Massoud
Barzani |
the settlement of this
issue according to the Iraqi Constitution,” Barzani
said, adding that “this does not mean that Kirkuk
shall become a Kurdish city, but we shall make it a
symbol for national, religious and sectarian
coexistence, to become a city for all Iraqis, though
there is no possibility for compromise about Kirkuk,
being a Kurdistan city.”
The Arab Political Council in northern Iraq’s
oil-rich city of Kirkuk, had announced last Thursday
its rejection of any calls for the “division” of
Iraq, especially according to Article 140, that it
considered as “having been ended according to the
Constitution.”
The Council had issued its statement in the
background of a statement by Kurdistan Parliament’s
Speaker, Kamal Kirkuki, who told Aswat al-Iraq news
agency as having warned that non-implementation of
Article 140, “would push the citizens of the city
and the people of Kurdistan in the areas of
conflict,www.ekurd.netto
wage sit-in demonstrations, the same way as it
happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, to force the
other side to carry out a popular referendum to
decide the future of the Province, or to decide it
by themselves, without leaning to violence.”
“Kurdistan Region, as a whole, is part of Iraq and
so is Kirkuk that shall remain to be an Iraqi city,
but with a Kurdistan identity, the same as Erbil,
Duhok and Sulaimaniyah,” Barzani said, adding that
“if Article 140 died, this means that the
Constitution has died, and if the Constitution has
died, it means that the unity of Iraq has died.”
Article 140 is one of the most outstanding suspended
issues between the Baghdad Federal government and
the Kurdistan Region’s government, impacts of which
had created a broad dialogue over the past few
years.
Answering a question whether the Kurds wished to
isolate from Iraq, Barzani told the newspaper that
“all platforms for a (Kurdish) State are available,”
but he said: “so long as Iraq continues to commit
itself by the current Constitution, we shall do
nothing for splitting and establishing an
independent state, because commitment to the
Constitution serves the interest of Iraq, as well as
the interest of Kurdistan Region, especially under
the current circumstances.”
The oil-rich province of Kirkuk is one of the most disputed areas by the
regional government and the Iraqi government in Baghdad.
The Kurds are seeking to integrate the province into
the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region clamming it to
be historically a Kurdish city, it lies just south
border of the Kurdistan autonomous region, the
population is a mix of majority Kurds and minority
of Arabs, 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.
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