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Maliki's visit to Kirkuk city was "provocative", says Iraqi
Kurdish MP |
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Maliki's visit to Kirkuk city was
"provocative", says Iraqi Kurdish MP
10.5.2012 |
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May 10, 2012
BAGHDAD, — An MP from the Kurdish Blocs
Coalition (KBC) Wednesdays expressed her
disappointment over Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's
visit to Kirkuk, adding that the
visit was "provocative".
The Iraqi Council of Ministers held a meeting in
Kirkuk province on Tuesday under the chairmanship of
Maliki, who said that the identity of the disputed
province must be an Iraqi identity and that no other
identity can prevail.
Alaa Talabani said in a statement: "We hoped Maliki
would discuss during his visit the sufferings of the
province and the way to end it after it was targeted
by the totalitarian regime in the broadest campaign
of repression, displacement and killings in a
desperate attempt to take out the original
nationalism from it where the regime implemented
forced displacement, killings, and looting of land
and property against the citizens of Kirkuk from the
Kurd and Turkmen.
"Maliki ignored the rights of Kurds and Turkmen that
were robbed by the totalitarian regime and this made
his visit provocative more so than a visit to
inspect the province and work to end the suffering
of the citizens and give them real guarantees about
their stolen rights and accelerate holding a
referendum to allow the people to determine the fate
of Kirkuk to join the Kurdistan Region.
Talabani added that "this visit will increase the
tense relations between the federal government and
the Kurdistan Region.
"Iraq is facing a major political crisis and the
State of Law Coalition doesn't appear to be working
to resolve them in collaboration with partners in
the political process by resorting to the
constitution and the law to ensure the full rights
of the citizens that suffered a lot in Kirkuk,www.ekurd.net
especially from the dictatorial regime ruling."
Kirkuk province, as well as other areas in the
provinces of Nineveh, Diyala and Salahaddin, are
among the areas in which ownership is disputed
between the federal government and the Kurdistan
Regional Government.
Maliki's statements about the identity of Kirkuk may
increase the tension between Baghdad and Erbil,
which surfaced recently after the Kurdistan Region
refused to hand over Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi
to Baghdad.
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 the report by Salam
Baghdadi
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author or news agency,
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