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Kirkuk heart of election-law deadlock
Battle of control between Kurds, Arabs could delay voting in Jan.
Associated Press Writer
Photo by KEVIN FRAYER/AP file
Residents walk through a market next to Kirkuk Castle in Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad. Iraqi politicians are debating with new hostility over control of Kirkuk, a shabby northern city set near rich oil fields that both the self-ruling Kurds and the central government want.
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraqi politicians have been turning up their rhetoric over Kirkuk, the oil-rich city that both Kurds in the north and Arabs in the south want to control.
The dispute has caused a deadlock over the country's election law, threatening to delay Iraq's nationwide elections set for mid-January. Any vote setback could, in turn, disrupt American plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, scheduled to ramp up after the vote.
"We are getting to a crisis," said Marina Ottoway, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They have been trying for over a year to reach a compromise on Kirkuk." "Now," she said, "it is becoming a problem for the United States." For years, tensions have simmered over Kirkuk and its surrounding province of about 1.3 million people, 180 miles north of Baghdad. Boasting an ancient citadel, it is in many ways an ordinar, Iraqi city.
But it sits on a political and cultural fault line among ethnic Kurds and smaller groups of Arabs and Turkomen, or ethnic Turks. Vast oil fields, dotted with flaming smoke stacks, lie just to the north and west, raising the stakes.
Kurds consider Kirkuk a Kurdish city and want it part of their self-ruled region. But during the rule of former dictator Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Kurds were displaced under a forced plan by Saddam to make Kirkuk predominantly Arab.
Regaining control of the city is thus extremely symbolic for Kurds and many Kurds have returned since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But other groups claim Kurds have packed more Kurds into the city than before.
The population breakdown remains in dispute but U.S. officials estimated last spring that Kurds make up 52 percent of Kirkuk and its province, with Arabs at 35 percent and Turkomen about 12 percent.
The Arab-led central government vehemently opposes anything that would remove Kirkuk from its control. A referendum on the city's future - required by the Iraqi constitution - has been repeatedly postponed. The Turkomens have generally sided with Arabs, believing they'll be treated better than under the Kurds, a longtime enemy of their Turkish supporters.
The immediate dispute centers on voting rolls listing who can vote in Kirkuk in the January national election. While many proposals have been discussed, Kurds have favored using the 2009 voter registry, which likely reflects the Kurdish growth, while Arabs generally prefer the 2004 voter registry, when the Kurdish population wasn't so large. That has delayed the necessary deal on the election law.
Long-term, money also plays a role. Because of the surrounding oil, whoever controls Kirkuk stands to benefit enormously.
The Kurdish-Arab dispute over Kirkuk is different from Iraq's main political dispute between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs, which plays out more in the capital of Baghdad and surrounding areas.
The Sunni-Shiite split has less relevance in Kirkuk where both Kurds and Arabs are mostly Sunni Muslims. There, the fear among Arabs - both Sunnis and Shiites - is that Kurds will gobble up all jobs and government benefits if Kirkuk joins Kurdistan.
The United States has been watching the debate intensely for any repercussions it may have for the American military withdrawal.
Under a plan by President Barack Obama, all U.S. combat troops will be out of the country by the end of August 2010, leaving about 50,000 trainers and support troops in Iraq. Those remaining troops would leave by the end of 2011.
U.S. military commanders say the majority of the troop departures would come about 60 days after the planned Iraqi election - the idea being to get the country on stable footing before making any major troop changes.
Any delay in the election date could possibly push back the troop withdrawal. U.S. officials have said that they are still hoping the Jan. 16th date will go forward, but say their troop drawdown plan is not set in stone.
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