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| Author: | Lionel Beehner |
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June 30, 2006
Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, among them Muslims and Christians, is in the throes of a struggle over its future status. Located just south of Iraqi Kurdistan, the oil-rich city was "Arabized" under Saddam Hussein, only to be reclaimed after the war in 2003 by Kurds looking to annex it to their semiautonomous province. Neighboring Turkey is watching on nervously as Iraq's Kurds assert themselves politically and angle to take control over Kirkuk, something Ankara fears may mark a first step toward an independent Kurdish state. Iraq's Sunnis and Shiite nationalists, fearing an eventual split-up of Iraq, say Kirkuk is home to Arabs as well as Kurds and thus should not be incorporated into Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan. They accuse Kurds of forcibly driving Sunni and Shiite Arabs out of their homes. The Iraqi constitution mandates a citywide referendum on the status of Kirkuk by December 2007, a poll predicted to favor the Kurds. Yet until its status is finalized, Kirkuk will remain what former U.S. diplomat Peter Galbraith calls in his new book, The End of Iraq, a "ticking ethnic time bomb."
Between the 1970s and 2003, Saddam uprooted more than 100,000 Kurds in his efforts to Arabize the city. Kurds claim, stretching back to the late nineteenth century, they historically made up three-quarters of the population of Al-Tamin province around Kirkuk. Ethnic Turkmen point to a 1957 census that showed they made up a plurality of the city's population, while the surrounding province was majority Kurdish. Sunni-Arabs, meanwhile, cite a 1997 census that showed Arabs—both Shiite and Sunni—made up 58 percent of the city's population (some experts say the data is faulty because Kurds ran the risk of losing their land if they did not identify themselves as Arabs). Since the removal of Saddam in 2003, hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Kurds and Turkmen returned to Kirkuk to reclaim their lost properties or reside in camps on the eastern fringe of the city. Some experts say their motivation is to rebalance the city's population in preparation for the December 2007 referendum. Most experts say Kurds now make up a clear majority and retain control over most of the city's important political posts (because of a ruling allowing around 70,000 displaced Kurds to vote despite not residing in the city).
Kurds want to reclaim Iraq's third largest city for economic as well as sentimental reasons.
Washington has refused to confront the Kurds directly on the issue of Kirkuk and has played a hands-off role. Nor has the United States bended to the will of Turkey, another major U.S. ally in the region. Ankara has lobbied Washington, unsuccessfully so far, to use its power in Iraq to delay the referendum on Kirkuk's status or expand the vote to include all Iraqis, not just residents of Kirkuk. However, as CFR's Cook points out, "Essentially the United States and Turkey are at loggerheads on this issue." Some experts say Washington should become more involved given the Iraqi city's escalation in sectarian violence. "The Kirkuk question should not be deferred and cannot be solved by this constitution," Joost Hiltermann, Iraqi project director of the International Crisis Group, recently told the Turkish Daily News. "A major U.S. involvement is the only way to avoid violence." The U.S. military keeps a small security presence in Kirkuk (Al Tamin province, where Kirkuk is located, has sustained just thirty-seven U.S. casualties since 2003). The bulk of the security is provided by Kurdish-led police, at least some of whom are former members of the Kurdish militia, the peshmerga.
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