|
Iraq summons Turkey envoy to protest over
visit to Kirkuk
4.8.2012 |
|
|
|
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu (R) and the
governor of Kirkuk Najm al-Din Omar Karim (L), give
a joint press conference following their meeting in
the disputed northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, on
August 2, 2012, during a rare visit by a
high-ranking Turkish official to the city. His visit
comes a day after Davutoglu visited
Kurdistan and met Kurdistan president, Massoud
Barzani, for talks that focused on the conflict in
Syria, and at a time of notably cool relations
between Baghdad and Ankara.
Photo: Getty Images
•
See Related Links
August 4, 2012
BAGHDAD,— Iraq made a formal protest to
Turkey's envoy in Baghdad on Friday after the
Turkish foreign minister made a surprise
visit
to an oil-rich Iraqi city claimed by both the
central government and the country's autonomous
Kurdistan region.
The episode, the latest in a series of diplomatic
spats and tit-for-tat summonings of envoys between
the neighboring countries, is likely to worsen
already strained relations.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu had
travelled to Kirkuk on Thursday after visiting the
regional president in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi
Kurdistan.
But Iraq's foreign ministry accused Turkey of
violating its constitution with the visit, saying
that Davutoglu had neither asked for nor obtained
permission to enter Kirkuk.
A junior minister at Iraq's foreign ministry had
handed Turkey's charge d'affaires a protest letter
on Friday,www.ekurd.net
a strongly-worded statement from the foreign
ministry said.
"The note also included a demand by the Iraqi
government (for an) urgent explanation from the
Turkish government," it added.
Relations between Iraq, close to Shi'ite Iran, and
Sunni Muslim regional power Turkey, were tested
after U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq last year and
the government immediately tried to arrest one of
its Sunni vice presidents.
He fled first to Kurdistan and later to Ankara,
where he was given refuge.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Turkey's
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan then traded public
insults.
Baghdad's Arab-led central government and ethnic
Kurdish officials are locked in a protracted dispute
over who controls territory and oilfields along
their internal border. Kirkuk, which possesses huge
crude oil reserves, is one of those areas.
Iraq and Turkey are also at odds over the worsening
conflict in Syria. Turkey has become one of the main
backers of the rebels, while Baghdad has refused to
support calls for President Bashar al-Assad to step
aside.
Iraq is Turkey's second largest trading partner
after Germany with trade reaching $12 billion last
year, more than half of which was with the Kurdish
region.
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.
Copyright ©, respective
author or news agency,
Reuters | ekurd.net | Agencies
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the
content of news information on this page
|
®
