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Turkomen Front refuses spread of Kurdish
Asayish (Security) forces in Kirkuk city
16.8.2011 |
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August 16, 2011
KIRKUK, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
— The Iraqi Turkomen Front in northern Iraq’s city
of Kirkuk has announced on Tuesday its refusal to
allow what it described as “non-legal security
elements, belonging to the main Kurdish Parties, in
Kirkuk city, in a hint to the Kurdish Asayish
(Security) forces.
“The Kurdish officials in the executive and security
offices in Kirkuk Province are giving different
justifications to spread those elements in Kirkuk,”
the Turkomen Front stressed in a statement, copy of
which dropped in Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
“A clear politicized campaign, is demanding the
spread of Kurdish Peshmerga and Asayish forces in
the so-called areas of conflict in Kirkuk,” the
statement stressed, saying that “Kirkuk Governor,
who we were expecting him to respect balancing and
interests of everybody, is ignoring attempts to
spread Asayish forces in different parts of Kirkuk.”
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The Kurds are seeking to
integrate the province into the semi-autonomous
Kurdistan Region clamming it to be historically a
Kurdish city, 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. Photo:
Reuters |
“The Iraqi Turkomen Front rejects the spread of the
Asayish forces inside Kirkuk, demanding those, who
allege respect for the Iraqi Constitution, to oblige
themselves to the Constitution,” the statement said,
calling on Kirkuk Governor to “listen to the voice
of the street, describing the spread of those forces
as hostile, and he has to open the chance for
Kirkuk’s Anti-Terrorism Center, that was established
recently, to carry out the security operation.”
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,www.ekurd.net
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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