Turkey says monitoring ‘mass movement’ of Kurds to Kirkuk

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Turkey’s foreign ministry on Friday said it has been monitoring the movement of Kurds to the disputed province of Kirkuk for Iraq’s nationwide census and that this has caused concern for the Turkmen population. 

“The developments, reflected in the public domain, regarding the mass movement of Kurds from the KRI [Kurdistan Region of Iraq] into Kirkuk for the ongoing census in Iraq, which is being conducted after many years, have been closely monitored,” read a statement from Oncu Keceli, spokesperson for the ministry.

The main registration stage of the census began on Wednesday and lasted for three days. The months-long process will end later this year, with the final stage including tens of questions on a range of subjects, excluding people’s ethnic backgrounds.

“Although data on ethnic origins were not collected in this census, the significant population movement has understandably caused concern among Iraqi Turkmen and Arab communities. This irregularity will likely result in the inclusion of non-Kirkuk residents into the population of Kirkuk through fait accompli, which will, in turn, influence future elections,” Keceli said. 

Many Kurds returned to their hometown of Kirkuk days before the census following calls from Kurdish officials. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) announced a week-long holiday for public employees who wanted to return to their homes in the disputed areas, mainly Kirkuk and Nineveh. 

Kurds and other minority groups have been displaced from their homes in the multi-ethnic disputed areas multiple times over the years.

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled Kirkuk when Iraqi forces took control of the city in 2017, fearing reprisal following the withdrawal of Kurdish Peshmerga forces after the KRG held an independence referendum and included disputed areas then under its control. 

The same areas were subject to Arabization policies under Saddam Hussein’s rule, when Kurdish and Turkmen inhabitants were displaced and their lands given to Arab settlers. Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution outlines a process for resolving disputes over these territories, but it has never been completed.

The Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson said Ankara expects Baghdad “not to allow our Turkmen kin, who have been subjected to countless massacres and oppression over the past century, to suffer yet another injustice due to these recent developments related to the census.”

The question of ethnicity was left off the census partly because of concerns over how historic demographic changes in the disputed areas would be reflected in the data.