IRAQ AND THE KURDS: THE BREWING BATTLE OVER KIRKUK

IRAQ AND THE KURDS: THE BREWING BATTLE OVER KIRKUK
Middle East Report N°56 – 18 July 2006

Unless the international community acts soon to resolve mounting tensions in Kirkuk, the result could well be yet another violent communal conflict in Iraq, risking full scale civil war and possibly outside military intervention. The dangerously neglected looming conflict in and around the northern Iraqi city is equal parts street brawl over oil riches; ethnic competition over identity between Kurdish, Turkoman, Arab and Assyrian-Chaldean communities; and titanic clash between two nations, Arab and Kurd.

All parties should make clear their intention to pursue a negotiated settlement, explaining to their followers that compromises must be made for peace. The Iraqi government should invite the UN Security Council to appoint an envoy to start negotiations to designate Kirkuk governorate as a stand-alone federal region for an interim period. And the U.S. should place its weight behind such a UN-brokered political settlement.

D. THE CHRISTIAN NARRATIVE

Syriac-speaking Christians, be they Assyrians, Chaldeans or Syriacs, date their origins in Kirkuk to the (pre-Christian) Assyrian Empire; in their view, all other communities are interlopers.36 However, the Christians form such a small group in Kirkuk Ð an estimated 12,000 in 2006 Ð that their claims are generally ignored, and, they say, they have suffered expropriation at the hands of both Kurds and Arabs in Kirkuk and elsewhere.37 Christians are concerned that while the regimeÕs removal brought new job opportunities and the right to study in Syriac, it also brought chaos and a growing assertiveness of Salafist groups that consider Christians non-believers (kufar) and are thought to be behind church bombings.38

They especially fear growing tensions arising from the communal contest over Kirkuk. "Regarding us, the Assyrians, there is no problem, no pressure on us in Kirkuk.", said an Assyrian national leader. "But we are concerned, because if there is a crisis, everybody 36 Said one Assyrian politician: ÒWe are considered secondclass citizens in Iraq, but in fact all the others are guests. This is originally Assyrian land, and we are the original Iraqis".Crisis Group interview, Sargon Lazar Sliwa, local leader of the Assyrian Democratic Movement, Kirkuk, 19 March 2005. In 2003 he told Crisis Group: "We are the original 'castle people' from Kirkuk. Everyone else immigrated". Crisis Group interview, Kirkuk, 8 June 2003.

The Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), a mouthpiece for diaspora Assyrians that publishes editorials, refers to Assyrians as Òthe indigenous people of Mesopotamia (including Iraq), driven to the brink of extinction by genocideÓ, and to Kurds as Ògenocide deniers and occupiersÓ. AINA, 18 May 2006. Even Kurdish sources acknowledge that Christians constitute KirkukÕs original population. "Kirkuk is a mixed area, but its original people are the Chaldeans", said a Kurdish parliamentarian. Crisis Group interview, Nasih Ghafour Ramadan, Erbil, 1 April 2006. Web master's notes: [Another example of attempts by the Kurds to undermine the Assyrian identity of the Christians of Iraq by pretending that Chaldeans are an ethnic people. In reality they are Assyrian members of the Chaldean church established in 1553.]

This is an easy concession to make, given the small size of the Christian community and the fact that the Kurds" real opponents in Kirkuk are not the Christians but the Arabs and Turkomans. There may be other motives, as a historical endorsement of the Chaldeans is likely to anger the Assyrians, rivals in the conflict-ridden Christian community. 37

Christians in the Ein Kawa neighbourhood of Erbil allege that the KDP has pocketed the money offered by the U.S. for expropriating the land on which the new airport was built
(and which was an army camp under the previous regime).Crisis Group interviews, Erbil, 2003 and 2004.

38 See, for example, comments by Kirkuk Archbishop Louis Sako, quoted in ÒIraqi Crisis ReportÓ, Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), no. 177, 17 May 2006, at http://www.iwpr.net. For a discussion of the evolving Salafist tradition in Sunni Islam, see Crisis Group Middle East/North Africa Report N¡37, Understanding Islamism, 2 March 2005, pp. 3-18.

The rest of the report:

To the Kurds, Kirkuk was always a Kurdish-majority region – shared, they readily admit, with other communities – over which they fought and suffered, from Arabisation to forced depopulation to genocide. In their view, the Baathist regime’s removal created an opportunity to restore Kirkuk to its rightful owners. They have done much in the past three years to encourage the displaced to return, persuade Arab newcomers to depart and seize control of political and military levers of power. Their ultimate objective is to incorporate Kirkuk governorate into the Kurdish federal region and make Kirkuk town its capital.

To the other communities, the Kurdish claim is counterfeit, inspired primarily by a greedy appetite for oil revenue, and they view the progressive Kurdish takeover of Kirkuk as an outrage. To the Turkomans, in particular, the growing Kurdish presence has caused deep resentment, as they consider Kirkuk town historically Turkoman (while conceding that the Kurds are a significant urban minority, as well as an outright majority in the surrounding countryside).

crisis in Kirukuk


Christians of Iraq

Updated list of Opression and Murders of the Assyrians in Iraq News not reported by the International Press