ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Arab factions from Iraq’s multiethnic Kirkuk province gathered in Turkey this week to forge a coalition whose goal is to score a landslide victory against the Kurds in nationwide legislative elections next April.
Sources told Rudaw that the Arab effort is led by controversial Iraqi Sunni politician Mishaan al-Juburi, who has accused the Kurds of trying to take over Kirkuk, and Iraqi businessman Khamis Khanjar.
Their goal, the sources said, is to bring all Arab factions into a single coalition in order to participate under a single banner in the April 30 polls.
A large number of Arab politicians from Kirkuk, flown in by Abdulrahamn Monshid al-Asi, Ismael Hadidi, and Talal Rafaat Osman, gathered in Ankara on Sunday to hammer out a large Arab coalition.
In the previous election Arab factions allied with some Turkoman coalitions won six of the 12 parliamentary seats in Kirkuk.
“I hope this conference will pave the way for a bigger conference in Kirkuk that could result in the announcement of the creation of a united Arab list to satisfy all Arab factions in Kirkuk,” said Omar al-Juburi, an Iraqi MP from Kirkuk.
“It is better to announce the creation of the coalition in Kirkuk not in a foreign country,” he told Rudaw.
He said that as soon as conference delegates, who numbered around 150, are back in Kirkuk they would meet with other Arab factions which did not attend in order to also bring them into the coalition.
Al-Juburi added that the effort to form a single Arab coalition in Kirkuk is a mistake because an amended system of counting votes passed by the Iraqi parliament last month “is more in favor of small and medium lists.
“Therefore, the creation of a united Arab list is a mistake and it would be better for Arabs to participate with two separate lists in the next election,” the Kirkuk MP advised.
According to some sources, several prominent Arab politicians from Kirkuk refused to take part in the three-day Ankara conference, among them Sheikh Anwar al-Asi, Sheikh Ibrahim Mheri, Sheikh Ali Hamdani and other Arab Iraqi members of parliament from Kirkuk, members of the Kirkuk provincial council and tribal chiefs.
“I refused because I was against holding the conference in Ankara,” Burhan Mzhir al-Asi, a member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, told Rudaw.
“Arabs of Kirkuk have not reached an agreement on choosing the chairman of the united Arab list for the next parliamentary elections,” al-Asi added.
Meanwhile, Mishaan al-Juburi told Rudaw that, “I have decided not to head any electoral lists and to create a large Arab list in Kirkuk to participate in the upcoming Iraqi parliamentary election.”
He also vowed not to ally with the coalition of Usama Nujaifi, the current speaker of parliament, accusing him of having close ties with the Kurdistan Alliance.
Al-Juburi, former leader of the Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc, won three seats in 2005 elections. He was indicted the same year on charges of corruption and laundering funds allocated for the protection of oil facilities in Kirkuk. Al-Juburi lives in exile in Syria and owns a TV channel and newspaper.
