SULAIMANI, Kurdistan Region— A senior Kurdish politician warned Tuesday that the new Iraqi decision to grant local ID cards to internally displaced people will stir sectarian tensions and shift the population makeup in many areas.
Narmin Osman, who served as the environment minister in Baghdad in mid 2000, told Rudaw the decision, if implemented, would immediately affect the Sunni and Kurdish populations across contested territories.
“The issue is that most of the refugees come from Sunni and Kurdish areas where the war against ISIS militants has taken place,” Osman said.
“This also means that many of the Kurds and Sunnis who were driven out of their homes will no longer be counted as residents of their own original areas,” she added.
According to the new Iraqi decree any refugee who lived more than three years in other regions of the country, will be granted that region’s resident status and consequently could only vote in the new areas where they currently reside.
The decision, which was immediately refused by Kirkuk’s provincial authorities on Tuesday, will have implications for any population census that could determine the disputes over contested territories across the country.
Over 2 million people have been displaced in Iraq since the ISIS war started in early 2014 with nearly half a million
displaced people inside the Kurdistan region in addition to another million refugees from Syria and elsewhere.
The decision will have wide impact on the anticipated Kurdish referendum for independence as many of the areas that are planned to go to polls are still waiting for the return of their residents.
That is particularly is the case in areas like the Yezidi town of Shingal and Golala where the bulk of the local inhabitants are still refugees in Kurdistan region camps and could not vote if the decree was implemented.
“I think the decision should be referred to the parliament and put to vote where it most likely could be rejected on a national level,” Osman said.
