Vol. 73/No. 18      May 11, 2009

The United Nations issued a report April 22 outlining possible solutions to be decided by referendum. UN special representative to Iraq Staffan de Mistura of Sweden, who has served in a similar capacity in southern Lebanon, Somalia, and the Balkans, distributed the report to top officials of the Iraqi government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). The report is not available to the public.

Kirkuk is a center of the country's oil industry, which supplies 86 percent of the nation's overall revenue. Kirkuk's oil fields contain 13 percent of the country's reserves. A law governing oil resources has been stuck in parliament for more than two years because of disagreements over whether the central government or regional authorities should have control. Royal Dutch Shell and two large Chinese companies are considering a joint project to invest heavily in Kirkuk's oil fields.

Originally Kirkuk province was predominantly Kurdish, with Turkmen and Christian minorities. It was considered the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.

In the 1970s and '80s, Saddam Hussein moved thousands of Arabs to the province and drove thousands of Kurds and Turkmen out in order to ensure Baathist control of the oil. In the policy called "Arabization," Hussein's government razed hundreds of Kurdish villages. Christian churches were also attacked.  
 
Autonomy following 1991 war
Following the first U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991, the Kurdish people won a measure of autonomy in northern Iraq under a U.S.- and British-imposed no-fly zone. When Hussein was overthrown in the U.S. invasion of 2003, the KRG was established, with Erbil as its capital. Not included was Kirkuk and other northern areas with large Kurdish populations, pending further discussion.

A referendum was scheduled in 2007 to decide Kirkuk's status, but it never happened. Elections that occurred in the rest of Iraq in 2008 also never took place in Kirkuk. According to a UN press release, the new document proposes four options, none of which include partitioning the region.

The New York Times reported, "A member of the Iraqi Parliament who read the report said that one of the four proposed options was the creation of an independent or autonomous region run by Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen." A second option "was for Kirkuk to become a special region, to be jointly administered by the regional and central governments. Under this proposal, a referendum would be held within five years to determine whether residents wanted Kirkuk to become part of the Kurdistan region or to be incorporated into the central state."

Today Kirkuk is governed by a provincial council in which Kurds have 26 seats, Turkmen have 9, and Arabs have 6.

The Kurdish militia, called pesh merga, is deployed in Kirkuk. More Iraqi troops loyal to Baghdad have moved in recently, following bombings in which 10 people died. Earlier this year, the U.S. government upgraded its forces in Kirkuk from a battalion, about 900 troops, to a combat brigade, around 3,200 soldiers.

The newly formed Iraqi Kirkuk Bloc, made up of Arab bourgeois political figures in the province, announced it is going to start deploying Awakening councils to provide security, the Washington Post reported. The councils grew up over the last year as U.S. military officials succeeded in convincing Sunni insurgents to stop attacking U.S. and Iraqi troops and instead turn their weapons on al-Qaeda forces.  
 
Turkish government
The government of neighboring Turkey is watching the dispute in Kirkuk closely. Turkey depends on oil from northern Iraq. Ankara has made it clear it opposes a KRG strengthened by the annexation of Kirkuk and its oil. The Turkish government is fearful of its own large Kurdish population, which has been inspired by advances in Kurdish autonomy in Iraq.

The Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), a coalition of six Turkmen parties in the area, supports Turkey's position. Jala Neftachy, a Turkmen on the provincial council, was part of a delegation that visited Turkish officials in 2008. If the KRG attempts to annex Kirkuk by force, she told the Christian Science Monitor, "The Turkish government has confirmed this to us; they will not be bystanders, they will interfere by force."

Massoud Barzani, president of the KRG, has called for annexing Kirkuk.

January elections in nearby Nineveh province point to the unstable situation in the north. The Kurdish Brotherhood slate lost majority control. The Arab al-Hadba List won 19 seats compared to 12 for the Brotherhood slate. The new provincial council has four Arab members, one Turkmen, and no Kurds. In at least one town, Sinjar, Kurds demonstrated against their exclusion from the provincial leadership. Officials in the Kurdish town of Zummar said they want to join the KRG.

Last year Barzani said U.S. troops would be welcome to remain in Iraqi Kurdistan after they withdraw from cities in other parts of the country.

The April 18 Washington Times published an interview with Fuad Hussein, Barzani's chief of staff, who said, "If the problems which exist now cannot be resolved in one or two years, the withdrawal of the American army will lead to unrest in Baghdad and perhaps a return of sectarian fighting."

Monsignor Louis Sako, Catholic archbishop of Kirkuk, said withdrawal of U.S. troops will create a "vacuum" that could lead to "civil war." Sako blamed the recent deaths of five Christians on sectarian violence.  
 
 
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