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New Iraq army headquarter fuels Arab-Kurd
row
16.11.2012 |
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Iraqi Army.
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Kurdish Peshmerga Forces.
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,
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.
November 16, 2012
KIRKUK, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,—
The formation of a new military headquarters
covering disputed territory in northern Iraq has
sent already-poor relations between Baghdad and its
autonomous Kurdistan region plummeting.
The new Tigris (Dijla) Operations Command, based in
Kirkuk city and covering all of the province of the
same name as well as neighbouring Salaheddin and
Diyala, has drawn an angry response from Kurdish
leaders who want to incorporate much of the area
into their Kurdish autonomous region.
The latest dispute strikes at the heart of an
unresolved row between Baghdad and the Kurdish
regional government in Erbil over territory, oil and
the interpretation of Iraq's federal constitution.
"The formation of the Dijla (Tigris) Operations
Command in Kirkuk and Diyala is an unconstitutional
step by the Iraqi government," Kurdistan regional
president Massoud Barzani, an opponent of Iraqi
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said in recent
remarks.
"The intentions, aims, formation and actions of this
command centre are against the Kurdish people, the
political process, co- existence and the process of
normalising the situation in the disputed areas."
Maliki, a Shiite Arab, responded by warning Kurdish
Peshmerga forces to "avoid provoking" Iraqi security
forces.
"We call on Peshmerga forces not to carry out any
acts that arouse tensions and instability in those
areas, and we advise them to stay away from
government forces," said the statement, attributed
to Maliki and referring to his position as commander
in chief of Iraq's armed forces.
Kurdish leaders want to the expand their autonomous
region across a swathe of territory that stretches
from Iraq's eastern border with Iran to its western
frontier with Syria, against the strong opposition
of Maliki's government.
The unresolved row poses the biggest threat to
Iraq's long- term stability, diplomats and officials
say.
The central and regional governments are also
embroiled in disputes over energy contracts awarded
by Kurdistan that Baghdad regards as illegal, and a
variety of other rows.
The Tigris Operations Command was set up on
September 1 with its head Lieutenant General
Abdulamir al-Zaidi saying it was intended to address
poor security coordination in the area that had
allowed several violent attacks to occur.
Zaidi, also head of the army's 12th division, which
covers Kirkuk and parts of Salaheddin, insisted to
AFP that his forces were not entering Kirkuk city,
an ethnic tinderbox of Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen that
is secured by the local police force.
But Kirkuk province's Kurdish governor Najimaldin
Omar Karim has refused to cooperate with the new
command, arguing there was already sufficient
coordination between existing institutions.
"I am the head of the (provincial) security
committee, which includes commanders of the police,
intelligence agencies, Peshmerga, and the 12th
brigade of the Iraqi army -- we already have major
cooperation, we don't need a new operations
command," he said.
"The Iraqi army must not intervene, we cannot accept
the imposition of martial law on us."
US forces played a coordinating role between Kurdish
and Arab forces in disputed territory, particularly
in Kirkuk, forming joint patrols and checkpoints
comprised of US soldiers, Iraqi soldiers and troops,www.ekurd.net
and Kurdish Peshmerga forces.
Most Iraqi policemen in Kirkuk are Kurdish, while
the majority of Iraqi soldiers are Arab.
But since US forces withdrew last year, relations
between Baghdad and Erbil have become increasingly
bitter, with Barzani saying earlier this year he
feared Maliki would use soon-to-be- delivered
US-made F-16s to attack Kurdistan, and pushing to
withdraw confidence from the premier's unity
government.
Maliki insisted in an earlier statement that the new
command centre did not target any specific group and
that it was set up solely to fight terror.
Kurds, however, remain unconvinced.
"We respect and appreciate the Iraqi army, it
belongs to all of us, but it must stay in the
barracks and work for security at the border," Karim
said.
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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