Arab-Kurd tensions rise on Kirkuk farmland

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Tensions are rising over ownership of the land in a village in Kirkuk province where Kurdish farmers say the army is preventing them from harvesting their wheat and Arab settlers have set up tents, hoping to pressure the federal government into backing their claims on the land.

Ahmed Aziz, a Kurdish farmer in the village of Palkana, visited the tents, bringing his official documents to prove that he legally owns his land.

“They want to seize houses and land again on the grounds that the government owes them.  I am not the government!” he said.

Aziz argued the point with Jabar Ghabash, an Arab settler, who later told reporters, “We call on the federal government to resolve our issue.”

A group of Arabs had tried and failed to set up tents in the village on Wednesday. They succeeded in doing so on Thursday.

The dispute dates back to the Baathist era. Land belonging to several disputed villages was taken away from Kurdish farmers by the Iraqi government in 1975 on grounds that they were located in prohibited oil zones. Two years later, in 1977, under Decree No. 949 issued from the Baath Supreme Revolutionary Council, they were given to Arabs who were resettled into the area.

The Arabization of the province has been a historical flashpoint between Baghdad and the Kurds.

After 2003 and the fall of the Baath regime, Iraq began a policy of de-Arabization within the framework of Article 140 of the Constitution, which aims to reverse the demographic changes carried out by Saddam Hussein.

Recently, however, Kurds have complained that the policy of Arabization has been revived.

Mohammed Amin, a representative of Kurdish farmers in Palkana, told Rudaw on Friday that the Iraqi army has banned them from harvesting around 50,000 acres of land in the village. He said that they have informed Kurdish lawmakers in Baghdad of the situation in the hopes that the federal parliament will dispatch a delegation to investigate the issue.

“Where in the world does the army intervene in the affairs of farmers?” asked the farmer Aziz.

Shakhawan Abdullah, deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament, told reporters on Wednesday that he raised the issue of Kurdish farmers in Palkana with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani, adding that the only solution to the issue is the amendment of the current property law and the dissolution of decrees issued by the Baath Supreme Revolutionary Council decades ago. 

In the town of Daquq, a number of Arab settlers have recently started digging wells on land owned by Kurdish farmers, aiming to boost their agricultural activities. 

Mam Azad, a Kurdish farmer, told Rudaw on Wednesday that local authorities do not allow Kurdish farmers to cultivate their land while turning a blind eye to Arab settlers who have not only farmed but also dug wells.

“Now they have begun filing lawsuits against us, including me. They want us to abandon the land, or else they will take it back the same way Saddam gave it to them,” Nawzad Hidayat, another Kurdish farmer from Haftaghar, told Rudaw. 

A Kurdish official said last month that over 92,000 Arabs had been relocated to Kirkuk since 2017, urging Kurdish political leaders to work to stop what he labeled a “new Arabization.”