ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Representatives of Kirkuk’s various ethnic and religious groups are to meet with the United Nations representation in Iraq this week to discuss possible ways to end unresolved disputes and normalize the province more than a year after it was taken by Iraqi troops.
The meeting follows a similar meeting between the community leaders and an American delegation.
“The meetings will continue,” Rebwar Taha, an MP of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) told Rudaw. “The United Nations will meet on this matter, too.”
“At the end the aim of all the meetings is normalizing the situation of the city.” Taha said.
Non-Kurdish parties reject a proposal that suggests the province be run by a joint Iraqi-Kurdish administration.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution calls for the normalization of all disputed areas through legal means and allow genuine residents to return home.
Kurds however, have long complained that new provincial authorities are violating the Article by settling new Arab families in certain areas and barring farmers from their land.
Leaders of the influential Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi forces who backed Iraqi troops into Kirkuk in October 2017 dismiss reports of instability and say the Americans are after the province’s oil.
“The security of Kirkuk is currently very good,” Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati, head of the North Branch of the Badr Organization, said.
He added they had no plans to pull out of the city.
“We do not accept any American solution to Kirkuk, but we are open for any Iraqi solution to the question of Kirkuk, including all the subjects,” Bayati added.
Bayati's remarks came a day after PUK spokesperson Saadi Pira said that the Hashd al-Shaabi forces, Federal Police and Iraqi Army should go fight terrorism and leave Kirkuk.
The Arabic Council appears to say they too want an end to the disputes, but they reject any US involvement in the affairs of Kirkuk.
“This subject does not need all the media attention and propaganda,” Hatam Taai, spokesperson of the Arabic Council in Baghdad said. “The matter of Kirkuk is I think clear to all. This is an Iraqi province.”
Shakhawan Abdullah, a Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) official who is member of the committee tasked with resolving the Kirkuk issue said “We will continue to persuade others in order for it to become an Iraqi project. We have always said that American, Turkish and Iranian projects work when Iraq itself does not have one to resolve the issues. As KDP, we have a project of our own and have given it to all the other parties.”
Reporting from Hardi Mohammed
