IRAQ: Ethnic tension on the rise in Kirkuk

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BAGHDAD, 17 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - Political and social tensions between Kurds, Arabs and Turkoman could be escalating again in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 255 km from Baghdad, as Kurdish officials renew calls for the city to be part of an autonomous Kurdistan.

Arab and Turkoman representatives have promised to boycott the new Kirkuk city council unless Kurds agree to a better ethnic balance in the city. They have also asked for help from US officials on the matter.

"Kurds want their rights and are searching for a fast solution to their problems. They were forced out of Kirkuk under Saddam Hussein's regime and it's time for them to get back to their lands," Diar Miran, a senior official from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), told IRIN in Kirkuk.

Miran added that he was sure the government would find a solution to the problem and guarantee that Kirkuk become a part of Kurdistan. Indeed, residents from all ethnicities are looking for action from the new Iraqi government on the issue.

However, so far no solution has been found, with negotiations to form a new Iraqi government floundering this week, in part on the question of Kirkuk's status. Given the strength of feeling, it looks unlikely that a rapid solution will be found.

"I have come back to my city searching for the rights that I lost at Saddam's hands, I don't care if Arabs are being displaced or not because they didn't care when we were displaced by the ex-president. They just came and took our lands and homes," Minar Bartoni, 56, a Kurd who has returned to the city, told IRIN.

Kurdish leaders call Kirkuk their Jerusalem, saying they should control it and its oil fields because it was historically Kurdish. The Kurds are pushing Shi'ite leaders like the current vice-president of Iraq, Ibrahim al-Jaffari, to help give property back to Kurdish returnees, displaced by Arab settlers who were brought to the area under Saddam Hussein's Arabisation programme.

The Iraqi Kurdish head of the KDP, Massoud Barzani, named by Kurds, along with head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Jalal Talabani, as a potential Iraqi president in the new government, said in an interview with Al Arabiya television last Friday, that the fate of Iraq's oil-rich city of Kirkuk must be determined now and that they did not want to postpone a solution until after the establishiment of a new constitution.

Al-Jaffari told IRIN that Kirkuk was a very sensitive case due to its ethnic and religious diversity and that they would try to do their best to ensure that the city is part of Iraq for all Iraqis, so that all the ethnic groups in Kirkuk enjoy the same rights. "Kirkuk needs a permanent solution and not a new one for each new month," he said.

The minority Turkoman accuse the government and US-led Coalition of having forgotten that Kirkuk is their home too, leaving them out of any decision processes.

The Turkoman bloc holds nine seats in the new assembly, which leaves them with little influence in the formation of a government. They say that many Turkoman groups in Kirkuk are angry at the latest statements from Kurds and are preparing to fight to have their rights recognised.

"We are the base of this city and they have forgotten that because they don't care about people's lives, but only about the oil here. It's discrimination against us, the Turkomen who have built Kirkuk," Jinan Saluci, a member the Turkoman Shi'ite Council (TSC), told IRIN.

Saluci added that the city was in danger of seeing more heated clashes between Kurds, Arabs and Turkoman, especially after the alleged killing of senior members of their parties in the past week, which led to revenge killings of KDP members in the city.

According to the Turkoman National Front (TNF), there are about 3 million Turkoman in Iraq, especially in the northern areas between Tal Afar and Mandily and in north Baghdad. The figures are based on the census of 1957, the last before Saddam Hussein's Arabisation policies that distorted the ethnic balance in the region.

Saddam's Arabisation propramme forced most of the Turkoman people to leave the northern provinces of Kirkuk and Diyala, installing Arabs from the south in their place.

But now Arabs are also being discriminated against, according to local NGO officials and members of the Arab association in the city. They are being displaced to areas around the city, where they are camped in tents or living in abandoned buildings.

Those who have returned to their original cities in the south are also often homeless and are living in camps without any government help, according to the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS).

"We want our rights as human beings. We were based in Kirkuk and they don't have the right to force us out of here. We can all live together because Kirkuk is for all Iraqis and not only for the Kurds. The government sees what is happening and never takes action against this discrimination," Salah Abdullah, 45, father of five and displaced 5 km from Kirkuk, told IRIN. "I have prepared my gun in the case I have to fight for my rights because peaceful measures aren't working anymore."

[ENDS]