Kirkuk dispute threatens to plunge Iraq into Kurdish-Arab war Ministry for Extra Regional Affairs - 29 Oct. 2008
KIRKUK, IKurdistan region, — Iraq's relative calm is threatened by a festering Kurdish-Arab conflict over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and other disputed territories, that could explode into the worst sectarian war the country has suffered since the 2003 invasion, a new report says today.
The report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) says the territorial dispute is blocking political progress in Iraq, contributing to the delay in passing a law on sharing oil revenue, and threatening to put off critical provincial elections.
Pointing out that the Arab-Kurdish dispute dates back to Britain's creation of modern Iraq after the first world http://www.ekurd.net/ the ICG report warns: "In its ethnically-driven intensity, ability to drag in regional players such as Turkey and Iran, and potentially devastating impact on efforts to rebuild a fragmented state, it matches and arguably exceeds the Sunni-Shia divide that spawned the 2005 - 2007 sectarian war."
At the heart of the dispute is the city of Kirkuk, home to 900,000 Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, which sits on one of the country's biggest oil fields. It lies outside the northern zone run by the Kurdistan Regional Government, but is in practice run by Kurdish peshmerga fighters and a Kurdish intelligence service, the Asaysh, which works closely with US intelligence.
Arabs and Turkmen residents, who represent 40% of Kirkuk's population, claim they live in fear, particularly of the Asaysh.
The tensions in the city ignited in late July, when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the midst of a Kurdish demonstration. That triggered an attack by a Kurdish mob on the headquarters of a Turkmen party, where guards fired into the crowd. Over 25 people were killed in total and more than 200 injured.
Soon afterwards, Nuri al-Maliki's government in Baghdad sent troops into three areas that had been under informal Kurdish control, further escalating tensions and threatening a direct stand-off between Iraqi regular army and peshmerga forces.
The dispute over Kirkuk has derailed legislation in the national parliament to pave the way for provincial elections. Arab and Turkmen politicians demanded a guaranteed quota of seats in the Kirkuk assembly,www.ekurd.net but Kurdish parties refused.
Kurdish leaders argue Iraq's constitution gives them the right to absorb Kirkuk and other historically Kurdish-majority areas, in the name of "normalising" demographics skewed under Saddam Hussein by forced removals and a policy of Arabisation.
Today's ICG report recommends that the only solution to the seemingly intractable problem is an "oil-for-soil" trade-off, in which the Kurds are given the right to manage revenues from their own mineral wealth and receive security guarantees for the existing internal boundary between Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq, http://www.ekurd.net/in exchange for deferring their claims on Kirkuk for 10 years.
The report warns: "The most likely alternative to an agreement is a new outbreak of violent strife over unsettled claims in a fragmented polity governed by chaos and fear."
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* Kirkuk city is historically a Kurdish city and 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."
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk city and other disputed areas.
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.
NOTE: the extent of Saddam's 'Arabization' of Kirkuk .. the 250,000... is disputed below, as it has been in many places before. Am guessing just part of the 'demonization' process, which you we do know.
The dispute over control of Kirkuk prevented Iraq's parliament from passing a law authorizing provincial elections. Although the law finally passed late last month, the issue of Kirkuk was not resolved, only postponed.
The first thing a visitor sees when approaching Kirkuk from the north is a tower of flame ............. The potential wealth has made Kirkuk a tormented city ever since oil was discovered in 1927. Today, the city's three main ethnic groups, Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens, are vying for demographic and political control.
"If you look at history, you'll find that Kirkuk has always been part of Kurdistan," says Rebwar Falq al-Talabani, who serves as deputy chairman of the Kirkuk Provincial Council. Talabani reflects the views of his fellow Kurds, who claim the city as their own, but he says he favors a temporary solution that the Iraqi parliament imposed on the city.
Demographic Disputes
Elections in Kirkuk will be delayed until a commission sorts out who is a legitimate resident and who is eligible to vote. That's not as easy as it sounds, because former dictator Saddam Hussein tried to change the demographics of the city by forcing Kurdish families out and replacing them with Arabs, who were thought to be more loyal to his regime.
Mohammed Khalil al-Jobouri, an Arab member of the provincial council, says the degree of Saddam's "Arabization" program in Kirkuk has been exaggerated.
"Saddam Hussein brought in no more than 50,000 Arabs over a period of more than 30 years," Jobouri says. "But since 2003, some 650,000 Kurds have been settled here."
Jobouri's numbers can't be confirmed, but he is repeating an often-heard charge made by the Arabs and Turkmens: They say that while Saddam expelled thousands of Kurds during his time, the Kurds are now using the same tactics, trying to change the political landscape by bringing in thousands of Kurds who never belonged there.
"The Kurdish political parties didn't learn any lesson from Saddam Hussein," says Ali Sadik, a Turkmen. "They accused him of being an oppressor, and here they are doing the same thing."
Good-Faith Cooperation Needed
Sadik is an official of the Turkmeneli Party, one of several that represents Turkmens in the city. Like the others, he asserts that his ethnic group has a historical claim to Kirkuk, and he says they won't get fair representation until the real population figures have been sorted out.
It is very difficult to assess what the real population numbers are, but Iraq's parliament has named a committee to try. Talabani, the Kurd, says there are ways to figure it out, including inspecting ID cards going back as far as 1957 and checking old voting lists and even ration cards.
The politicians from all three ethnic groups say this approach could work if — and only if — each group cooperates in good faith. The problem, all three agree, is that now, at least, no group trusts the others.
A senior official at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad calls Kirkuk a "headline issue" — a symbol of fundamental problems facing all of Iraq. The official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, says that for Kurds, Kirkuk represents Kurdish autonomy; for the Arabs, Arab unity; and for the Turkmens, a place in Iraq's political system.
The U.S. official says he thinks the issue is not really about oil, since Kurdish leaders have said they would accept a revenue-sharing plan that would share Kirkuk's oil but also give them access to the revenues from Iraq's giant southern oil fields.
Kirkuk As An Example
The official noted that the U.N. is working on a series of options for solving the Kirkuk issue and is expected to deliver its suggestions soon. Meanwhile, he said he believes that at the local level in Kirkuk, there are politicians willing to work in good faith for a fair solution.
Arab representative Jobouri agrees, but he says time is running short.
"Kirkuk is the key to solving all Iraq's problems," he says, "and it's also the problem that could complicate everything else in Iraq."
Pulling back: US soldiers looked through a book inside a Baghdad classroom in October. Under an Iraqi-US pact, troops will pull back to bases by the end of June 2009. Loay Hameed/AP
America's diminishing role in Iraq
Many Iraqis say passage of the US-Iraqi security pact ushers in a new era in which US military power will be replaced by Iraqi political power.
Jane Arraf .. The Christian Science Monitor December 2, 2008 edition
Baghdad - A surprising development has emerged in this city's streets and its corridors of power – the United States and its 140,000 troops have become increasingly irrelevant.
Some Iraqi officials see the passage of a landmark agreement with the US last week as the beginning of a new era – one in which the US presence has become overshadowed and American military power is replaced by Iraqi political power.
"I think we are entering a new phase as a whole," says Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih. "The end of an era – of Iraqi political dynamics taking over and coinciding with the end of the Bush administration – and the end of an era with the UN Security Council resolutions and the bringing in of the Status of Forces Agreement."
The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) provides the legal basis for US-led troops to operate in Iraq after a wartime United Nations Security Council mandate expires at the end of December. The bilateral agreement essentially transforms the US from acting as an occupier – with sweeping powers to launch military operations, detain Iraqis, and bring equipment in the country at will – to having a more normal relationship with Iraq.
Under SOFA, American forces are to pull back to bases outside Iraq's cities by the end of June 2009 and withdraw entirely from Iraq within three years.
The security pact was the first such agreement since the invasion to outline specific terms for US involvement in Iraq. It was also the first in the region to be publicly debated and approved. Iraqi leaders backed the agreement after reassurances from President-elect Obama that his administration would not try to change the accord negotiated by the Bush administration, Iraqi and American officials say.
"I think there is wide recognition that the role of the United States – the leverage of the United States – has diminished and will diminish further," says a senior Iraqi official. "Some will welcome this but, ironically, those who were so opposed to the Americans before are alarmed by it."
"I want to kiss you," jokes Abu Ibrahim, a jovial Sunni security official to US Army 1st Lt. Benjamin Dalton. Abu Ibrahim, formally known as Mohammad Abu Alaa, heads 300 Sons of Iraq, a neighborhood security force, in Baghdad's Amariyah neighborhood.
His mother, three sisters, and his grandmother were killed when a US cruise missile hit a shelter in Amariyah in 1991, but like many of the other almost 90,000, largely Sunni Sons of Iraq, he has aligned himself with the Americans.
"They have always supported us. They've always responded when we needed anything," says Abu Ibrahim. "This agreement is the only option to protect the country against Iran and to protect the Sunnis."
The protection that he and a wide array of others are seeking is from Iraq's Shiite-led government, which many Sunnis don't trust and others see as becoming too powerful.
In parliament, the major Sunni bloc succeeded in linking a series of political reforms aimed at checking Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's dominance to the passage of the US-Iraqi security pact.
Mr. Maliki came to power essentially by default in 2006 as head of a largely Shiite-Kurdish political coalition. Following an initial wave of popularity, he has come under increasing criticism for what are seen as widespread efforts to consolidate power before provincial and national elections next year.
"My hope is as we had the security surge in the last year, year and a half, the time has come for a serious political surge to fix the significant flaws in the system and resolve underlying political issues, whether it is power sharing, whether it is resources or revenue sharing," says Dr. Salih, a Kurd, who as deputy prime minister also oversees national security.
"These issues need to be dealt with as part of a national pact – if we don't take these political challenges seriously, and if we don't make headway toward a national pact, I am concerned that the security gains will be dissipated," he says.
At a public art show Sunday in Dora, which had been one of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods, teenage schoolgirls turned out to practice their drawing. A group of engineering students at the Dora Technical College say they didn't like having American troops in the country but wanted them to stay until security improved.
"We don't like the agreement but we probably need it," says Nabil.
While violence has dropped across Iraq, a series of bombings Monday hit US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul, killing at least 32 people. Overall death tolls are still down compared with a year ago – civilian deaths in November numbered 296, compared with 538 the year before – but concern over Iraq's stability has turned from threats from extremists to more complicated political fissures.
"Politics is partly show but it is also a reflection of the struggles going on within society," says a senior Iraqi official. "If we don't address the underlying political issues the security gains could unravel. If we don't address the political issues we risk a confrontation among the mainstreams as opposed to the extremists."
The SOFA has also sparked fears among counterterrorism analysts and some Iraqi officials that gains made against Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups could be significantly set back as American forces withdraw and are replaced by Iraqi security forces that are still disproportionately Shiite.
"I'm worried," says one senior Iraqi official. "This is one area the Sunnis had major, major concerns about – they say we trust the Americans more than we trust the Iraqi security forces – this is not a statement of confidence in the present state of affairs of Iraq."
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