ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The Committee on Disputed Territories in the Kurdistan Region Government’s [KRG] parliament called for the end of the “militarized state of Kirkuk” on Friday, and asked that Peshmerga forces return to stabilize the areas in a joint effort with the Iraqi army.
The statement comes as tensions between Kurds and Arabs have escalated over a series of fires set to farms on territory claimed by both the KRG and the federal government.
The implementation of article 140 of the Iraqi constitution--to conduct a census and a referendum in the disputed territories-- would “fundamentally resolve all the problems of the area”, said the committee.
The statement also called for the removal of the current acting governor of Kirkuk and other officials who were appointed by then Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, rather than through official elections.
In western areas of Kirkuk province, Kurdish farmers said 1,100 dunams of farmland was set ablaze on Friday.
"The Arabs residing in Palkana village set on fire the cropland of Kurdish farmers," Badradin Shamsadin, a Sargaran Town Council member, told Rudaw.
Kurds and Arabs in Kirkuk have been locked in disputes over land ownership since Arabization policies were set in place by Iraq's former dictator Saddam Hussein.
"Those Arabs, after becoming certain that they have lost the case, have started burning the crops of the Kurdish farmers," Shamsadin said, referring to lawsuits brought by Kurds to Iraqi courts, claiming they are the rightful landowners.
In and around Kirkuk, farmers have claimed other ethnic groups and even remnants of the Islamic State (ISIS) are setting their crops on fire.
Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi downplayed the arson claims on Tuesday, saying that there are "fires every year." Although he admitted they are sometimes due to internal feuds between landowners and not necessarily ISIS.
Acting Kirkuk Governor Rekan Saeed al-Jabouri, a Sunni Arab, decreed that all agricultural land disputes should be frozen this season so that Kurdish and Arab farmers can find solutions through legal means, KirkukNow reported on May 22.
Recent ISIS propaganda by al-Naba claimed this week that the burning of crops is revenge and retaliation for years of bombardment during its war with Iraqi and Peshmerga forces.
However, the extremists claimed they aren't targeting Muslims. They did admit to attacking members of the Iraq Security Forces including the Sunni Tribal Hashd.
Daesh says it is a revenge for the five years of bombardment that saw cities under its control destroyed and "everything inside of it burnt".
To the southeast near Khanaqin, a member of the Kakai Kurdish ethno-religious minority was killed on Sunday.
Farhad Kakai, a community and religious leader, told Rudaw English that Hawkar Jalil Kakai was killed by improvised explosive devices while trying to put out fires in Daquq.
In an interview, Kakai explained that farmers deemed "un-Islamic" are being targeted by the extremists.
"They don’t enter formally. They come especially during the nights. What else they do is say, 'If you want to pay the tax, call this number,' " he said.
Since October 2017, Iraqi Security Forces have held the security portfolio of the disputed or Kurdistani areas which include the locations of many crop fires in Kirkuk, Saladin, Diyala, and Nineveh provinces.
The Federal Police and Hashd al-Shaabi have some presence in the areas, but they are not conducting investigations, according to Kakai.
"They don’t send people to write reports. It’s not just that they aren’t stopping the bad people, even they aren’t reporting it. Three bombs exploded targeting the Kakais, but not one report was written by them. They aren’t going to see what happened," he said.
The disconnect between the Iraqi premier's office and the provinces has been a wide-spread phenomenon, not just in Abdul-Mahdi's premiership, but in his two predecessors' as well.
"That means the forces or battalions are actually encouraging ISIS to do these kinds of things. If they took action, we wouldn’t see this," Kakai added.
Parts of northern Syria including Kurdish-controlled Rojava have also been afflicted with crop fires.
Masoud Barzani, the leader of Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, said in a statement on Thursday that the burning of Kurdish farms in disputed areas and “the killing, hurting and injuring of Kurdish people in these areas has become a recent phenomenon, committed on daily basis.”
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution was supposed to have resolved the issue of the disputed provinces by 2007, but successive governments have failed to implement the steps outlined in the provision.
