Rudaw's Nwenar Fatih and Zryan Haji spoke with acting Kirkuk governor Rakan al-Jabouri on December 19. Jabouri was made governor of Kirkuk province after the removal of Kurdish governor Najmaldin Karim in October 2017, when Iraqi forces, assisted by the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, known in Arabic as Hashd al-Shaabi) took over the city.
He spoke to Rudaw about the current situation of Kirkuk, electing a new governor for the disputed province and claims of Kirkuk’s “abnormal” situation.
He slammed Kurdish officials who ruled the province from 2003 to 2017, accusing them of making demographic changes, arbitrarily arresting Arabs, and mass-scale encroachment on public property. He claimed that Kurds, namely the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), are still in control of the bulk of security positions in Kirkuk.
He also dismissed repeated claims that he has renewed the Baath-era Arabization policies against Kurds, saying he has followed the law in his role as governor.
Under his rule, Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen are equally treated, he added.
Below is the full, translated interview with Jabouri
Translation by Zhelwan Z. Wali
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Rudaw: How is the situation of Kirkuk? Is it governed by a normal, civil authority? As an interim governor, do you have full power over the province? Or does military rule run parallel to yours?
What really matters is for the facts to be known. On the seventh day of the operation to impose the rule of law in Kirkuk [following October 16, 2017], it was decided that all Hashd {Popular Mobilization Units, PMF] withdraw from Kirkuk. It was my suggestion, in a bid to quell sensitivities. There is a difference between military and civil rule, and the former has no impact on the latter. Military rule is engaged only in discussions concerning security. With respect to administrative matters, there is no intervention from the military and security forces. In fact, Iraqi federal and Hashd forces are outside of Kirkuk city.
What do you think of Kirkuk's situation?
I have continuously worked with and contacted Kirkuk’s Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen politicians, with the exception of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) representatives who deem Kirkuk to be occupied. We have worked in a normal way so that even Kirkuk’s budget [from the Iraqi government] and the mechanism of its distribution have been sorted out in agreement with all sides.
All the Kurdish parties agree that Kirkuk's situation is abnormal. President of Iraq Barham Salih said so in an interview with Rudaw a short while ago. There are even Arabs and Turkmens who share the same view. Do not you think their concerns will have to be taken into consideration?
I spoke about these issues with the President three times. I think the word 'abnormal' is more of a political expression and not founded based on realities on the ground. Given its definition, abnormality means the existence of human rights violations, lack of [political] participation, oppression and discrimination. Those who make such accusations have neither lodged complaints nor submitted a single piece of evidence proving violations have been committed. We spoke with politicians who keep making these accusations and have asked them to give us proof that human rights violations have been committed by security forces or administrative units of the province against any Kurd, Turkmen or Arab citizens, so that we can resolve the issues.
The very same people fabricating this propaganda have been responsible for hiding more than 2,800 Arabs of Kirkuk in the [Kurdistan] Region's prisons. The very same people were responsible for the destruction of 135 Arab inhabited villages, then denied they committed human rights violations.
During the rule of Kurdish brothers from the Kurdish parties, Arabs were completely ignored and not allowed to participate in the running of administrative affairs of Kirkuk. In Daquq, they demolished Arab villagers' houses and left Kurdish households unscathed.
Kirkuk’s [post-October 2017] administrative changes were made by a committee of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen. We have to talk about the illegalities committed during the state of emergency period after October 16. Was any Kurd arrested in Kirkuk, or kidnapped, or does the fate of someone arrested without court warrant remain unknown? Let them come to us and give us a single name. What I can give you is the names of thousands of people behind bars in the Region's prisons.
Is there a single room in any village, district or city in Kirkuk province that has been demolished or leveled to the ground with the state's front-end loaders? When they say an illegality has been committed, they must come forward about it with evidence.
You were elected a member of parliament in the May 2018 parliamentary elections. Why didn’t you go to parliament? Was the post of governor more important to you?
There is no alternative in Kirkuk, and there would be no one to legally act as governor in my absence unless the Provincial Council met to elect a new governor. Continuing as governor of Kirkuk is not my will, but the result of continued rivalries within the Provincial Council. If the Kurds and their Brotherhood List had agreed on someone, things would have been different now.
Which is more important to you, Kirkuk or Baghdad?
What is more important for me is Kirkuk’s stabilization. It does not matter who will run the city’s administrative affairs. What matters is that we want a stable Kirkuk, where Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen feel secure. We should also note fact that no political assassination has been committed in Kirkuk in the past two years.
Until now, the subject of who will become the next governor of Kirkuk has remained unresolved. Why is there an insistence on leaving the matter of electing a new governor unresolved? Do you not think the existence of an interim governor demonstrates that Kirkuk’s situation is abnormal?
You should ask the Brotherhood List that question who had a two third of the seats of the Kirkuk Provincial Council. They were the group who had to decide to elect a governor, not the state in Baghdad. The government of Baghdad has one authority; recommend the deputy to run the governor's affairs when the post is vacant, until a vote is held by the Provincial Council to either make the deputy a permanent governor or elect a new one.
My staying in the post does not mean the situation is abnormal. You will have to ask the Provincial Council why they left the matter unresolved before they were terminated [along all the other provincial councils of Iraq in the wake of continued protests].
A short while ago, the prime minister of Iraq decided the KDP should be given back their base in Kirkuk, but you stood against the decision. Why?
Our statement is clearer than the way it has been interpreted. First, the parcel of land where the base is established is an oil zone, and the building on it was constructed illegally. This in itself is not a big deal, as there similar violations do occur in Kirkuk.
After the building was seized from them, the dead bodies of innocent people were found in it, dumped in a sewerage. The bodies were discovered with their hands tied. Those who worked in the base must be interrogated. We have no problem with any party wanting to return to their bases in Kirkuk in a legal way. We had officially announced that we were fine with the KDP returning to their Kirkuk headquarters.
It is said that a portion of Kirkuk’s budget will be earmarked for the construction of a new, Kirkuk Operations Command building in the K1 area [one of the biggest bases in Kirkuk] - and that has been the reason why the KDP's base has not been handed over to the party yet. Is it legal to build a military base with Kirkuk's budget share?
In general, the building of a military base by an administrative unit is not the business of media. According to a decree from the Council of Ministers, five percent of the budget should go to the military forces, and any province has the right to repair or construct any site. We are spending money on police, who are run by someone from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Concerning building a Kirkuk Operations Command base, there has not been such a plan, nor have I been asked to build one. Our only plan is to build a base for the Police Command of Kirkuk.
Do you hold the authority over the extraction and sale of Kirkuk oil in coordination with North Oil Company?
The process of extraction and exportation of oil is not done in coordination with the administrative units of Kirkuk. This business is done by the company in coordination with the Ministry of Oil.
A short while ago, some Arabic media outlets hinted at the smuggling of Kirkuk's oil, with the complicity of the city’s political and security officials. What information do you have on that?
Combating the smuggling of oil is the responsibility of the security forces. Unless we receive official orders, we cannot confirm whether or not smuggling has been committed. Maybe the oil and energy police can report they have confiscated smuggling oil. It is related to areas that fall under the control of the Iraqi federal forces.
However, there are still Kirkuk province territories and oilfields that are controlled by the Region's forces. We do not know how the oil and gas of their areas is actually dealt with. We have only asked about the size of Kirkuk province oilfields operated by the North Oil Company but under the Region’s control. They have a daily output of 180,000 barrels. We do not know anything about the gas they control yet. We do not know where the oil ends up. Therefore, you may ask the Region's authorities this question.
Before the Peshmerga entered Kirkuk province in 2014, there were daily bombings. Once the Peshmerga forces entered Kirkuk, the number of the bombings dropped considerably. Now that Daesh is resurging, we do not see any degree of coordination between the Peshmerga and Iraqi federal forces to fight off the group.
For 15 years, the Peshmerga forces ran half of the city of Kirkuk, on the eastern side and downtown. In 2014, the Peshmerga forces reached the western side of the city as well, a site of clashes with Daesh militants, were there were Iraqi federal forces.
To evaluate a 15-year presence of the Peshmerga, you have to look at the figures, including the number of car bombs, killings, political and security cleansings against Arabs and Turkmen, the number of robberies.
All our politicians were killed when the Peshmerga was present on the ground in Kirkuk. As many as 2,800 Arabs went missing at the hands of Peshmerga forces, and the residents of 135 villages were displaced.
I think the conduct of the Peshmerga and Asayesh forces are an unbearable memory for the Arabs and Turkmen of Kirkuk. Those politicians who were leading Kurdish forces erased all the sacrifices the normal Peshmerga soldiers paid with their blood to defend Kirkuk. The Peshmerga paid a heavy price to defend Kirkuk.
Do not forget, the people of Kirkuk as a whole defended Kirkuk. We had Hashd al-Shaabi, which was prevented from taking part in defending Kirkuk. The Turkmen alike had a Hashd [popular force] of their own who fought against Daesh.
We have to make a practical comparison. Go and check the Kirkuk police and Combating Violence Department and Counter-Terror forces’ records to see how high the level of assassinations and kidnappings was in the past 15 years. Arabs now view Peshmerga as being a force that demolished their homes and kidnapped their sons with no justification.
Therefore, there is now a committee of MPs in Baghdad tasked with reaching an agreement for a joint administration of security. We are of the idea that the whole of Kirkuk must be involved in running the security files of the city. But, the legal definition of the Peshmerga is that they are guards of the Kurdistan Region, and they should not operate outside the Region's borders. If we want Kirkuk to be stable, a joint force must be formed by people from all of Kirkuk’s communities. Did you know that the majority of security posts are still held by our brothers from the PUK?
Since the Peshmerga withdrew from south and west of Kirkuk, there have been growing ISIS activities posing a threat to the life and security of locals. Do you not think the Peshmerga are able to fill the void, in coordination with Iraq’s other armed forces?
Daesh's activities are in south of Daquq, south of Rashad, Riaz and Abbasiya, where the Peshmerga have never been.
Kurds openly and frankly accuse you of practicing sectarian politics, renewing the Baath era's Arabization policies by bringing Arabs, who had been returned to their areas of origin after 2003 according to Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, back to the Dibis and Palkana areas in particular.
This is media propaganda, which Kurdish parties repeatedly use to stir up the Kurdish public. No families whose records are not in the region live there. I have not brought any families from anywhere to Kirkuk, because the authority to transfer civil status is not vested in the hands of the governor, but the Ministry of the Interior.
Their initial records dating back to the 1960s, 50s, 40s, some of them dating back even to the 20s, prove they were from Dibis. Their civil status identification cards are from Kirkuk and cannot be dealt with per Article 140... These Arab people, like the Kurds and Turkmen, are from Dibis too. We should bear in mind that the land belongs to Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen.
But the Kurdish farmers say they possess the land deeds?
There is no land belonging to Kurds or registered under their names, the same is true with the Arabs and Turkmen. Daquq’s land and properties were initially owned by the feudal lords… People used to work for them as farmers. It was the same case in Hawija as well. In 1958, during the reign of Abdul Karim Qasim, he issued the Law of Land Ownership Deeds taking them away from the feudal lords and giving them to the farmers, with each family receiving a parcel of land. There were Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen villages. In the past, neither Kurds, nor Arabs or Turkmen had any rights as citizens.
Since, Kurds consider themselves as a majority, they believe Arabs do not have the right to live in the region. Nevertheless, all the Kurdish families who live in Hawija [where they are a minority] have received agricultural lands and farm them, because they had been taken away from the feudal lords and given to them.
You should read the Palkana agreement, so the facts are not tampered with. There is an agreement signed by the representative of Palkana farmers, together with party representatives, the head of the Palkana Local Council and the mayor of the town detailing that anyone living there must have civil status from Dibis, that they must have received their agricultural land officially, and the contested lands must have their cases decided on by a court, regardless of what ethnic group you belong to.
Concerning the Palkana issue, I challenge anyone saying those [Arabs] living in Palkana have their names not originally registered in Dibis, but somewhere else, or saying the families living there are included in Article 140. The agreement details that when two sides claim ownership of a piece of land, they must both appear before the court, and it is the judiciary who will finally decide on their cases and in favor of one of them.
A few months ago, an agreement was signed in Baghdad to stop the return of Arabs to Kirkuk. Yet Arab families continued to return to the places vastly populated by Kurds. Why was this agreement violated?
Is there a decree issued by me? …I am only responsible for what I write and issue. What you say is media stuff. Go and visit the Shwan Sub-District Agricultural Directorate and ask them if they have received any letter from the governor about the issuing of any agricultural contract to any Arabs in Shwan. You have to see the minutes too, which were signed by Iraq's Council of Ministers. See my observations on them. I wrote that it is prohibited for Arabs to return to Qara Hanjir, the surroundings of Laylan, Shwan and Altun Kopri and part of Sargaran, as the land there do not belong to Arabs. Anything that is not stipulated in Law No. 117 is vague. Law. No. 117 was issued in 1958. Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen have been given lands based on that law...Therefore, I assure you that I have not resettled a single Arab family in a Kurdish inhabited area without legal grounds anywhere. I will stand against anyone unlawfully trying to resettle an Arab farmer in Shwan, Daraman or Altun Kopri. This is not my politics....What I am saying is that, in order to resolve an issue, we should resort to the court. The court is the highest authority. Many Arabs wanted to be resettled in Shwan and Altun Kopri, and I warned that that I would not allow them to do so because they were not from these areas. But the whole people of Palkana have their records in Dibis, and nowhere else in this country. Article 140 stipulates that resettled Arabs must be returned to their areas of origin. But those living in Palkana have not come from Anbar, Tikrit or Nasiriya... Again, I challenge anyone who says I have issued the authorization for a single Arab farmer outside the framework of Law No. 117 to go to Palkana. No one is able to encroach on a single span of the land possessed by Kurds based on Law No. 117.
From January 2 until December 19 of this year, 7,166 Arab families from Nineveh, Saladin, Diyala and other central and southern Iraqi provinces have moved to Kirkuk. Kirkuk’s Article 140 office says Iraq’s interior ministry allows the transfer of the civil status of any individual from one province to another. Do not you think this movement of Arab families is a new process of Arabization of Kirkuk?
There is migration. Kirkuk is an attractive city, and people move to it. But, I do not make any facilitation. I will not give anyone without Kirkuk civil status a residence card. This is an applied decision. I do not issue a food ration card or residency card to someone who is not from Kirkuk.
Does this migration effect demographic changes of Kirkuk?
But it does not affect voting. They will not have the right to vote. As someone from Kirkuk working in the security committee, I would evict all those people in Kirkuk who are not from the city if helped by the state. On the very same matter, I have submitted a letter to the prime minister to help return displaced families to their own areas and provinces. Concerning food ration cards, I will not make any transfers to Kirkuk. The Ministry of Trade has begun to allow the transfer of food ration cards from one place to another.
Regarding demographic changes, I made the answer clear; the governorate has no role in the transfer of civil status identification cards and food ration cards.
Have there been cases of the transfer of civil status ID to Kirkuk?
Yes there have, to some extent. Ninety percent of the transfers have been between districts and sub districts, from Hawija, Daquq and Dibis to Kirkuk city. In other words, the bulk of transfers have taken place within the boundaries of the province. There have been very few cases of transfers from other provinces into Kirkuk.
Did the Ministry of the Interior make the decisions?
Yes, they have specifically been issued from there. I cannot transfer someone from Altun Kopri to Shwan. What do I get from making demographic changes? Increasing the number of Arabs? To me, co-existence with Kurds is more important than importing people from other provinces to change the demography.
Why do not you talk about demographic changes made by Kurds? Sixty percent of the Kurdish people of Kirkuk have come from other provinces. Rudaw does not talk about that. I am not making it up. This is what the Ministry of Trade says. More than 88,000 food ration cards have been added to Kirkuk from 2003 to March 2018...This is not what I am saying, but the Ministry of Trade, and there is official evidence signed for by the trade minister. Of that number, 900 of them do not even have any records of the Iraqi Civil Status.
But it is a fact that the number of Kurds who returned to Kirkuk after 2003 was greater than the number expelled from Kirkuk by Saddam Hussein!
Nobody can deny that those who have returned to Kirkuk based on Article 140 are the people of Kirkuk. Can I label that as demographic change? But, how is that possible that someone's food ration card is from Kirkuk when their civil status ID is from Kalar, Kifri, Sulaimani or Halabja? There are people whose ID are even from Kobane [in Syria] or Mahabad [in Iran]. We have to get rid of this narrow view of thinking. When someone is displaced from Shwan or Shorjia [ a Kurdish neighborhood of Kirkuk], they can return home. But Arabs label the coming of someone from Halabja to Kirkuk as demographic change. The same is true with Arabs, if someone comes from Diyala, it is also demographic change. I recommend you go and check the decree I issued which disallows the return of any family who is not from Hawija. There were many people with civil status from Diyala province who moved to Hawija fearing terror post- 2003. They even built houses and bought property there, but we have prevented them [rom coming back]. This is an official, retrievable order, preventing anyone wanting to move to Kirkuk from another province from doing so.
The best solution for us, the people of Kirkuk, is for Sulaimani and Erbil to leave us alone. We want the political parties of Sulaimani, Erbil and Baghdad to leave us alone. And you as Rudaw, will have to go to Altun Kopri and Shwan and ask them how the Kirkuk governor is dealing with the Kurdish district and sub-district mayors.
The Kirkuk Provincial Council approved the Kirkuk development project on the condition that it should be spent equally across neighborhoods. Yet no project has been extended to the new, post-2003 established Kurdish neighborhoods. For example, there have only been six projects for the Kurdish Education System in Kirkuk, while 55 projects were carried out for the Arabic Education System. Is that not a big difference?
We do not earmark any budget for something named Kurdish, Turkmen or Arabic education systems. All we do is to provide an amount of money to the Kirkuk Education Department, and they spend it based on their own plans.
So these decisions are made by the Kirkuk Education Department?
Let me explain to you that such accusations are baseless. I earmark a budget to Altun Kopri and Qarahanjir schools, all of which are Kurdish. Concerning Kirkuk city center, I do not allocate budgets individually to Turkmen, Kurdish or Arabic schools. I provide the money to the Kirkuk Education Department and they will carry out their projects and fund them... The Kurdish media's problem is that they want to attract the public’s attention and neglect the numbers.
Would you please tell us how many projects are being carried out tin the Kurdish neighborhoods of Rahimawa, Azadi and Eskan?
They returned half the money I earmarked to the Kurdish neighborhoods, because they did not need it for any service projects. In the meantime, the media never brought to attention that there are Arab neighborhoods that have been neglected for the past 15 years. Do you want me to walk you across Rahimawa and then to Hozayran neighborhoods? You feel like you are walking in Africa when you go to Hozayran. There was outright discrimination in provided services in Kirkuk after 2005…In the meantime, it was undeniable that the Region were themselves carrying out some of the projects in the Kurdish neighborhoods.
Sometimes they would carry out service projects in neighborhoods, electricity projects, or build schools or hospitals on their own budget. Therefore, when we started to receive the Kirkuk's budget share, we gathered with all the municipal units. We asked Municipal Unit One, Azadi neighborhood, about the percentage of pavements in their neighborhoods. They said roughly 80 to 85 percent of their neighborhood is paved with asphalt. When we asked Municipal Unit Five, we asked them the same question and they said theirs was just 15 percent. In this case, I must give the priority to the latter. Still, I allotted 17 billion dinars to each of Municipal Unit One and Municipal Unit Two, Rahimawa and Azadi neighborhoods [both Kurdish], respectively. They each returned seven billion dinars to the province's coffers.
There is rivalry and disagreement among the Arabic List of the Kirkuk Provincial Council due to your management. Some of them accuse you of corruption and discriminatory conduct in favor of your tribe of Jabour when it comes to employment and the provision of projects.
Inside the Kirkuk governorate office, we have 37 job titles, equally been distributed among Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs, something that Kurds [Kurdish authorities in the city] never managed to do in the past. Let those who accuse me of favoritism come forward and show me if I ever employed someone from my tribe, Jabour.
Then why are they accusing you?
Look at the elections results of Kirkuk from 2005 to 2018. If four Arabs won, three of them must have been from the Jabour tribe. They are a people who exist. At Kirkuk University where the governor holds no power over them, six Arabs have posts. The assistant of the president is from al-Ubaid tribe, the dean of the law college is from al-Mafrajiya tribe, the education college dean is from the al-Hadisiya tribe. It is true there are another three deans from the Jabour tribe, but that has nothing to do with me. As governor, we are not allowed to interfere in the universities' affairs. Naturally, the number of Jabour tribespeople across Kirkuk’s education institutions is large compared to other Arabs. Look, the majority of the students and teachers are from the Jabour tribe. In the past, schools existed in Jabour areas as many as 40 years before they did in al-Ubaid areas. If you look at Kirkuk University instructors, you notice that the majority of them are Jabouris, because this tribe is a majority. For example, in the latest Iraq parliamentary election, two out of three MPs from Kirkuk were Jabouris. Can I say why the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan wins over the majority of the votes in Kirkuk? It is apparent to all that the PUK enjoys majority support here in Kirkuk. In 2015, there were 100 job roles in Kirkuk’s health ministry. Ninety of them were given to Kurds, eight to Turkmen, and two to Arabs. In the latest round of health worker employment, I created three committees. We had 85 job posts, given out to Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs, in order to prevent injustice.
Is this kind of employment the right thing to do? Do you not think the mechanism you followed for employment is a sort of injustice against a group which makes up the majority of Kirkuk’s population?
I had no other solution. I understand that injustice was done to Arabs and Kurds because Turkmen do not make up a third of the population of Kirkuk. But I had no other option. We do not have data on Kirkuk’s population. You might be certain that Kurds are a majority in Kirkuk. Let us take last year’s grade six primary school cohort as an example to reflect the population. We had 400 Turkmen pupils take grade six examinations last year, 6,000 Kurdish pupils, and 33,000 Arab pupils! All I want to say is that, we do not have clear data to show the ratio of Kirkuk groups and help resolve the problem of inequality.
The Kurdistan and Iraqi flags are constitutionally [recognized]. However, since the October 16 events of last year, the Kurdistan flag has not been allowed to fly in Kirkuk – but sectarian flags are. Why is that?
This is a decision made by the Iraqi Federal Court, not me. When the flag problem happened [from October 16 onwards], the question was taken to court. They responded, saying it was illegal.
That’s for government institutions - why are you even prohibiting it from being hoisted by individuals and party offices?
I cannot delve too much into this matter. Do you want to know when will the issue be resolved? When all Kirkuk groups sit together and reach consensus on the mechanism of running the province, militarily and administratively.
It is said that encroachment on public property is a growing trend. With what measures will you prevent this?
We are exerting maximum efforts to combat it. Encroachment was started by the Kurdish parties in the first place. Kurds encroached on public property in Faylaq, Shoraw and Panja Ali neighborhoods. They paved the way for other groups to encroach. If you go to destroy their [non-Kurdish] encroachments, they tell you that Kurds have encroached on the 60 percent of Kirkuk's land. I hope Kurdish parties will help us stand against encroachment. When they were in power, they took no measures against it. They did not just prevent it, but also provided the conditions allowing people to do it. We do not do that, nor do our political parties do it. The Kurds were committing massive encroachments. The late Jalal Talabani once told me that encroachment on the public lands is the result of rivalries among the political parties.
But your close associates are also being accused of encroachment on a number of certain parcels of lands in Kirkuk?
To anyone accusing us of encroachment, let them come and say a certain person has done it. I am the governor of Kirkuk, yet I do not have a house in Kirkuk. Daesh demolished my house in Hawija. And this house is state property. I do not possess even a single house in Kirkuk to live in. All I have in Kirkuk is one parcel of land provided to me by the state when I was deputy governor. I am now trying to build a house on it. My brothers in Kirkuk all pay rent. None of them has a house of their own. My brother Farhan has rented a house, which belongs to a secretary of Aso Mamand, head of the PUK headquarters in Kirkuk. The house is illegally built. All the Kurdish officials in Kirkuk live in households that encroach on state property.
Earlier you talked about how a large number of Arabs were arrested by Kurdish security forces, some of whom were released. How did the release take place?
It was done through an agreement with the Arab Council in Kirkuk. They were released in groups of 10, 20, 30 and 90, across different periods of time. The releases were made following demonstrations, which embarrassed their captors.
As the governor, you have started retaking state-owned possessions [e.g. household goods] of members of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, including their vehicles. Why?
It just includes equipment they have received from the state. They are being handed over to the Kirkuk Governorate... This is particularly so because the Provincial Council has been dismantled according to a decree from parliament. The process of retaking the equipment with members of the provincial council is upon a decree I have received from the government.
How many inmates do you have held in Kurdistan Region prisons?
The data suggests an estimated 2850 inmates are there. But according to names I have received from their families, they are just 1600. They have all been arrested since 2003.
Have you opened up any channels of discussion with the Kurdistan Region authorities on this matter?
We have engaged in plenty of talks, but to no avail. Talks bore no fruit with the KDP. No side has released anyone to us, except the PUK. The KDP is still in denial.
Does the KDP’s denial not mean that they have not arrested anyone and that it was the PUK instead? What evidence do you have that the KDP has made arrests?
The families of some of them visited them in prison. In the past and as a result of our talks with Mr. Masoud Barzani, he formed a committee to follow up on the case of the captured. Mohammed Khalil [head of the Arab List in the Kirkuk Provincial Council, assassinated by unidentified gunmen on December 1, 2015], who had a list of the names of those arrested, engaged in talks with the head of the Erbil Asayesh. The head of the Erbil Asayesh had denied saying these names were not in their prisons. Mohammed Khalil had even taken the families of those arrested with him who had just two days earlier met them, given them food and money, but the head of the Asayesh had again denied.
When Najmaldin Karim was the governor of Kirkuk, he hinted he would work to form a [semi-autonomous] Kirkuk region. What was your take on this suggestion?
I do not have any opinions on this suggestion. Without frank and serious talks between Kirkuk’s groups, I cannot make any proposals. Let them all engage in talks.
