By Arif Qurbany
It was initially after the Iraq War of 2003 that Kurdish factions returned to Kirkuk and long negotiations started to resolve the many conflicts in the ethnically mixed province, which is shared by the Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds.
As the Kurds and Arabs tried to reinforce their own distinctive identities in Kirkuk, the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) came with a new idea for the divided city which was largely backed by their mentors in Turkey. The ITF formally suggested in 2007 that the province could become an autonomous entity, much like the neighboring Kurdistan region.
The Turkmen idea was immediately rejected not only by the Kurdish groups, but also by the Arabs in the city.
It was after these negotiations that the different groups came to agree on a tentative road map according to which the resettled Arab families who had often forcefully been moved to Kirkuk should return to their original areas while the evicted Kurdish and Turkmen families would then return to Kirkuk. Once that confirmed, a referendum could finally determine where Kirkuk should belong to Iraq or Kurdistan.
Many inside the Kurdistan region slammed the idea of a referendum and described it as a grave breach of their historical rights. They also warned that according to this road map, Kurds would lose large parts of their land in other areas where forceful resettlements in the past had virtually remade the demographic shape to their disadvantage.
Not only did the Kurdish leadership accept the imperfect solution in the first place, they also neglected the procedures later. The future and status of the Kurdish territories outside Kurdistan Region was immediately put at great risk. Particularly as the deadline to implement the constitutional article 140 expired in 2007, which should have secured the return of families to their original areas.
At the same time several proposals were put forward as a roadmap towards a solution, although all the offers were turned down by the Kurdish leadership. Even the United Nations’ solution was ignored in 2007 when it suggested that Kirkuk would break away from Baghdad for a period of two years and be administrated by the UN during that time.
The UN would then manage the return of the families from and to Kirkuk and secure the rights of different groups in the city. It was suggested that after these two years the people in the city would determine in a referendum which administration they wanted to belong to.
The UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura met with both Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani and Masoud Barzani, but they finally rejected the project all together fearing that the outcome after the two years would harm Kurdish interests.
This was indeed a possibility and both Talabani and Barzani as the leaders of the Kurdish liberation movement resolvedly rejected every offer other than the full and unconditional return of Kirkuk to the Kurdistan region. They also rejected to declare a Kurdish state without the integration of Kirkuk into the existing borders and turned down Iraqi government’s offer that it would be the first country to recognize the Kurdish state if it was declared without Kirkuk.
These bold standpoints were made at a time when Kurds did not have the opportunity to take over Kirkuk as they do now and the threats against its return to KRG was growing. But despite all these challenges, the Kurdish leadership did not give up on Kirkuk.
After the ISIS offensive, a new chapter opened on Kirkuk and new opportunities materialized. The Kurds are now in charge of the city, politically, militarily, economically, in terms of its administration and security. Kirkuk is in the hands of the Kurds literally. All expectations predict that Iraq will not remain intact after the ISIS war and will very likely break up.
So the question is this: why would Kurds now call for and want an autonomous region in Kirkuk?
Obviously the limits of this article will not allow for the discussion of every aspect of this issue, which we could debate in public. But it should be quite clear for both the Kurdish public and also those who favor an autonomous region for Kirkuk that this option is the single largest threat against the long-term strategy of the Kurdish nationhood in the Middle East. It also poses immediate threats to the geography of Kurdistan and the Kurdish population in Kirkuk.
It is unfortunate that in the absence of a KRG strategy for the issue of Kirkuk and lack of sustainable relations with the inhabitants of these areas, many people with concerns for their future, regard the autonomous region more favorable than the integration with the Kurdistan region while the biggest losers will obviously be the Kurds of Kirkuk if the city becomes a separate entity.
This solution will in the end cut an important and large part of the Kurdish land and pave the way for Baghdad’s direct interference in the heart of the Kurdish areas. It will endanger the future of the Kurdish aspiration for statehood and give the Arabs and Turkmen the lead in the city over the Kurds.
We should recognize that it is the ongoing sacrifices of Peshmerga troops and the political status of the Kurdistan region that have strengthened the Kurdish position in Kirkuk.
Even in terms of numbers, more than 25 percent of the Kurdish voters in Kirkuk live in fact outside the city and in the Kurdistan region.
If Kirkuk becomes an autonomous region, it will no longer enjoy direct KRG backing while also the number of the Kurdish voters will eventually drop. When that happens, the other groups in Kirkuk will demand equal share of power, which they in fact have been granted by the 2007 decree at the provincial council. This means that Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs will each have 32 percent of seats in the city.
Needless to say that currently there are over 1 million Arab refugees in Kirkuk alone who have the support of Baghdad. In contrast to previous agreements, the Iraqi government now recognizes that any person, who has lived in a place for more than 3 years, could vote in their new area. This means that most of these refugees could easily be regarded as the people of Kirkuk after three years.
Furthermore, there are also attempts by the Shiites in Iraq to establish a route from Iran to Syria, which would cross through Kirkuk province. This will in the long run facilitate the movement of the Arab populations of Diyala, Tikrit and even Mosul into Kirkuk.
When that happens, Kirkuk will effectively become an Arab region and the fate of the Kurdish people in this city will hardly be better than the Kurdish people’s condition in Baghdad.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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