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Angry Kurds erase non-Kurdish sign posts
in Kirkuk
23.2.2012
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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, it lies just south
border of the Kurdistan 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.
Photo:
Aknews
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February 23, 2012
KIRKUK, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
— A group of young Kurds in the multi-ethnic
oil-rich Kirkuk city erased dozens of sign posts in
the city that were written only in Arabic in
reaction to what they call the “re-Arabization of
the city”
The group gathered central Kirkuk’s Citadel Park
where they started going after posts on the
Kirkuk-Erbil and Kirkuk-Sulaimaniyah roads that told
direction only in Arabic language.
“This action comes after the authorities failed to
add Kurdish language to the posts in a 10 day period
we set for them” a statement by group said. “any
post that id not include Kurdish language, or there
were [grammatical] errors, we erased them”
Kirkuk was subjected to Arabization policies under
the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein where
Kurdish families were expelled from the oil-rich
province and Arabs from central Iraq were resettled
there.
The group now have given the authorities another
15-day period to add Kurdish to the posts inside the
city or they will erase those as well, according to
the statement.
Kurdish language has been recognized in the Iraqi
constitution as the official language of the country
alongside Arabic.
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,www.ekurd.net 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.
AK News part of this report by Jamshid Zangana
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