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The Future of Kirkuk

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By Yucel Guclu • First Counselor, U.S. Turkish Embassy

The question of Kirkuk’s final status remains among the touchiest issues concerning Iraq’s future. The Iraqi Kurdish political parties seek to include Kirkuk in a federal Kurdish state, an outcome at odds with Iraqi Turkoman sensitivities. The Turkomans consider Kirkuk to be their own ancestral capital and cultural center. Understanding the Turkoman claim to Kirkuk is essential to defuse a potentially explosive problem.

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The last reliable census in Iraq – and the only one in which participants could declare their mother tongue – was in 1957. It found that Turkomans were the third largest ethnicity in the country, after Arabs and Kurds. The Turkomans numbered 567,000 out of a total population of 6,300,000. Later polls dropped "Turkoman" as a category. Based on the 1957 census data and a growth rate of 2.5 percent annually, it is estimated that Iraq’s Turkoman population today is no less than two million, out of a total population of 25 million.

Prior to granting Iraq independence, the British-supervised Iraqi government sought to compel the Arab majority to respect minority rights. The Iraq parliament enacted Local Languages Law No. 74, 1931, to make Kurdish and Turkish official languages in various northern districts including Kirkuk. The law also stipulated that the language of instruction should be that of the majority of pupils. The law acknowledged both Kirkuk and Kifri to be majority Turkoman.

As a condition of acceptance into the League of Nations, the Iraqi government on May 30, 1932, specified areas where minority languages, local administration, law courts, and primary education were to function. This declaration was incorporated into the constitution of 1925 with the reaffirmation of Iraq’s undertakings toward minorities.

Article 1 of the declaration stipulated that no law, regulation, or official action could interfere with the rights outlined for the minorities. Although Arabic became the official language of Iraq, Kurdish became a corollary official language in Sulaimaniya, and both Kurdish and Turkish became official languages in Kirkuk and Kifri. It stipulated that Iraqi officials assigned to Kirkuk should not only speak Arabic but also have competency in Kurdish and/or Turkish. The same article stipulated that Iraqi courts should accept testimony in Kurdish and Turkish. Equal minority rights were granted to the Kurds and the Turkomans alike. Article 10 placed these rights under the League of Nations’ guarantee. When the league dissolved in 1946, the U.N. assumed responsibility for its guarantees. These U.N. obligations remain in effect.

With the 1968 establishment of Baath Party control, the situation of the city’s Turkomans grew increasingly precarious. U.N. reports between 1996 and 1998 detailed problems confronting the Turkomans. They faced arbitrary arrest, internal deportation or exile, and confiscation of personal property. Baghdad sought to change the demography of the city and its environs to scatter Kurds and Turkomans and replace them with Arabs.

In the months preceding Operation Iraq Freedom, the Turkish government raised concern about the potential for Kurdish militias to expand their area of control unilaterally. The U.S. government guaranteed that Kurds would not enter Kirkuk or Mosul. Soon after the start of hostilities, however, 20,000 Kurds flooded into these cities; half stayed. With U.S. red lines shown to be ephemeral, the Kurds continued their migration. In August 2004, journalists reported that as many as 500 Kurds a day streamed into Kirkuk, a move calculated to skew a pre-election result. The Kurdish political parties encouraged the flight with subsidies.

Among those issues that most concern the Turkomans are recognition of Turkish as one of the official languages of Iraq, their acknowledgement as a component community within the country, and, most importantly, the status of Kirkuk.

Kurds may feel they have a real claim to Kirkuk, or they may be guided more by a desire to attain its oil wealth. Nor will Iraq’s Turkoman community renounce their historical claim and legal rights.

As the Kurdish parties exploit and exacerbate ethnic tensions, the risk of stability in Kirkuk grows. The international community might respond by sending human rights monitors in Kirkuk until the local population can elect a representative administration in the city and region. This will require a fair and impartial census under the monitoring and supervision of the U.N. The U.S. government and other coalition partners should also pressure the Iraq central government in Baghdad to maintain the unity of state, constrain local militias, and prevent local ethnic and sectarian cleansing. For Iraq to remain viable, a referendum on the future of Kirkuk in 2007 should be postponed.

Yucel Guclu is a first counselor at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C. This op-ed was based on "Who Owns Kirkuk? The Turkoman Case," from the Winter 2007 edition of the Middle East Quarterly.


Posted by FJN Staff on 07/27 at 03:39 PM • Hits: 135



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