ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Efforts are underway to return more than 900,000 dunams of land confiscated from Kurdish citizens in Kirkuk province, a Kurdish lawmaker representing Kirkuk in the Iraqi parliament told Rudaw on Tuesday.
The vast tracts of land were seized under decisions issued by a Ba’ath-era commission known as the Northern Affairs Committee, which was tasked with overseeing the Arabization campaign in the provinces of the Kurdistan Region, as well as in Kirkuk and other disputed areas with significant Kurdish, Turkmen, and Christian populations.
Kirkuk MP Habib confirmed to Rudaw that efforts have intensified “in the past two weeks to address the issue of Kurdish citizens’ lands that were seized under the decisions of the Northern Affairs Committee of the defunct Ba'ath Party, estimated at around 900,000 dunams.”
These lands were supposed to be returned to their original Kurdish owners or usufructuaries in accordance with Iraqi Cabinet Resolution No. 29 of 2012, but the decision was never implemented.
Cabinet decision No. 29 of 2012, orders the cancellation of all decisions related to agricultural lands owned or usufructed by non-Arabs in Kirkuk province, whose contracts had previously been annulled or whose usufruct rights were extinguished by the Northern Affairs Committee of the former Ba’ath regime.
The decision aims to restore the legal status of the lands to what it was before those Ba’ath-era decisions, and it is considered binding and enforceable.
MP Habib said that stated that “the issue will soon be resolved per a new agreement [among political blocs],” and added that Kurdish citizens whose lands were seized, or whose usufruct rights were annulled, would be required to fill out official forms to initiate the process of reclaiming them.
The Northern Affairs Committee of the dissolved Ba'ath Party had previously revoked the contracts of Kurdish citizens that granted them the right to own or work on these lands, and reallocated the properties to Arab settlers who had been transferred to Kirkuk as part of a policy aimed at altering its demographic composition.
For his part, Kakarash Sadiq, head of the office for the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, told Rudaw that the issue has two dimensions.
On one hand, it involves lands whose agricultural contracts were extinguished, covering more than 3,000 dunams.
On the other hand, it concerns properties that were fully expropriated, after which new contracts were issued to Arab settlers. According to Sadiq, this latter category falls under the jurisdiction of the Iraqi justice ministry, and official correspondence will be sent to the first and second real estate registration departments in Kirkuk to begin the legal process of returning these lands to their rightful owners.
