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| Homeland: Ali Mahdi, a Turkmen deputy in Kirkuk, points to a map of the historic Turkmen community in Iraq. Sam Dagher |
Can the U.N. avert a Kirkuk border war?
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq is expected to unveil a plan in May that it hopes will lead to a compromise over contentious land issues in oil-rich northern Iraq.
from the April 25, 2008 edition
Page 2 of 3
"We are looking for ways to compromise. Some areas are soft, some areas are hard," says Mr. Ihsan, using the terms "soft" in English to describe the areas that are overwhelmingly made up of one of the three ethnic groups and "hard" being the more mixed and contentious areas.
He says the KRG would be open to working out within the UNAMI-administered process "power-sharing formulas" in places where Kurds are present but do not make up the majority.
In return, he says, the KRG would demand that areas that are overwhelmingly Kurdish and are now de facto under the control of the two main Kurdish parties be annexed to the KRG. As for the city of Kirkuk, he says the KRG is willing to have its fate decided through a referendum but no later than the end of 2008.
Kurdistan's Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani says that although his government is determined that the city of Kirkuk and other contested areas become part of its semiautonomous KRG that does not mean it would not be willing to have other communities – namely the Arabs and Turkmen – be represented in the local administration.
"We are ready for power-sharing in Kirkuk," says Mr. Barzani, adding that his government's willingness to have the implementation of Article 140, which calls for a vote on the fate of Kirkuk, extended until June is a sign of goodwill.
But Barzani says the KRG's willingness for compromise does not mean it will give up on the city of Kirkuk. He recounts how his grandfather Mustafa Barzani, considered a Kurdish national war hero, had proposed to Mr. Hussein in 1970 "just do not deny Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan and we are ready for any agreement. He refused and fought us."
For the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), the most militant camp that is supported by Turkey, and many Arabs, Article 140 has expired. The ITF says the only solution now is to declare Kirkuk "a special province" and allow a period of at least 10 years to resolve internal border disputes.
Many Arab leaders here say they are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the Kirkuk question.
"We are like a dog who can't go anywhere because his tail is stuck … we are accused by the Americans that we support the insurgency and if we take part in the political process we are labeled by our own people as agents," says Sheikh Abdullah Sami al-Assi al-Obeidi, a member of the Kirkuk council. He has been the target of three assassination attempts since 2005.
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