ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Kurdistan Region’s Parliament Speaker Yousif Muhammad said in Tuz Khurmatu Thursday that the strategic town, lying on a highway connecting northern Iraq to Baghdad, is henceforth part of Kurdistan.
“From now on this area is considered part of Kurdistan,” he said in a meeting Thursday with local officials and the town mayor, Shalal Abdul.
Muhammad said that most of the Kurdish territories outside the borders of the autonomous Kurdistan Region have now come under Kurdish jurisdiction and “in the future we will take legal steps to hold a referendum there.”
Tuz Khurmata in Salahaddin province is among the many Kurdish-populated cities and towns where the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) moved in Peshmerga forces last month, filling in a vacuum left by retreating Iraqi forces fleeing a jihadi-led advance.
The Kurds have extended their zone by about 40 percent, now controlling almost all of the so-called “disputed territories” they claim as their own in the provinces of Nineveh, Diyala and Kirkuk.
Since early last month, when Iraq began to come apart under jihadist attacks, the Kurds began taking things into their own hands: They have announced a planned referendum in the territories now under their control to decide whether they want to become part of Kurdistan, and a vote on independence from Iraq.
Muhammad told Tuz officials that Kurdistan will not wait for Baghdad to decide the fate of the disputed lands, some of the rich in oil and gas.
He said that an election bill passed by the Kurdish parliament this week was to finalize the status of those territories, “because the government in Baghdad has been negligent on that issue and not taken any practical steps.”
The fate of the disputed lands was to be decided under a 2007 referendum that was never held by the Iraqi government. Kurdish leaders announced last month that those constitutional provisions have now expired, and that they are arranging a referendum.
For his part, the mayor of Tuz Khurmatu urged Muhammad to take the fate of his town to the Kurdish parliament, and dedicate a session about the plight of the local population.
Tuz Khurmatu, 85 kilometers south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, has been under full control of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces since the withdrawal of Iraqi troops last month.
The town and its surrounding areas have witnessed some serious clashes between Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Peshmerga forces, who are mostly defending their claimed lands.
Kurdish leaders have long accused Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of paying little heed to constitutional mandates meant to promote power sharing among Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
On Friday, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani urged Iraq’s new President Fouad Massoum “to redress all the constitutional violations.”
“We hope you can protect the rights of all the Iraqi people, which are embodied in the constitution,” Barzani said to Massoum in a congratulatory letter on winning the presidency.
He called on him to “eliminate all the violations perpetrated against the people of Kurdistan.”
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