ICG Report Rejected as Fallacy – There is no Kurdistan, and there are no Kurds
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
November 23, 2008
Such a state will be a tool in the criminal colonial hands of England and France, the two monstrous and anti-democratic regimes that spread chaos and conflicts in the same area for already about 90 years, due precisely to their illegal and most loathed intervention, which was the result of their long, calamitous and paranoid anti-Ottoman policies.
A fake state "Kurdistan" will be a real plague for the unfortunate nations that have already been peremptorily included in the so-called borders that the criminal and inhuman Freemasonic alchemists, well hidden in their Apostate Lodge, have drawn in grave and provocative disregard of the local historical and social realities.
The nations which would be engulfed in the plague – state ´Kurdistan´ would face extermination; according to the fake borders that have been disreputably publicized in various media, there will be Turks, Aramaeans (involving ´Chaldaeans´ and ´Assyrians´), Turkmen, Shabbak, Loris, Armenians and Azeris who would be included in the fake state – as minorities to tyrannize. But it will be far worse….
What most people allover the world ignore is that, in addition to the aforementioned peoples, in the fake state Kurdistan, there will not be just "Kurds" (as supposed majority) because simply such nation does not exist.
In fact, there are many peoples and ethno-religious groups with tremendous ethnic, linguistic, cultural and religious differences among themselves up to the extent that there cannot – and more importantly, they do not want to – be called "Kurds".
Against the outright majority of the otherwise de-personified (in the Freemasonry-controlled Western mass media) peoples and ethno-religious groups who are being undeservedly and fallaciously called "Kurds", a terrible assimilatory and dictatorial machine will be imposed in order to thoroughly "kurdify" them. What happened to the Berbers, the Copts, the Aramaeans, the Sudanese Kushites, the Nubians and the Yemenites, who have been forced for 210 years to become ´Arabs´ (whereas they are not), will happen to these ill-omened nations.
The Zazas, the Hawramis, the Gilakis and the other Goranis, the Failis, the Yazidis, the Ahl-e Haq (Yarsanis), the Mukris, the Ardelanis, the Hawleris, and the other Soranis do not want to become the minced meat of the Freemasonic fallacy ´Kurdistan´ that targets to only replace Turkish, Farsi or Arabic with the Kurmanji language as a foreign – yet obligatory – language on all these different nations and ethno-religious groups.
On this, I will expand in other articles, but here I republish further parts of the ominous Report.
Oil for Soil: Toward a Grand Bargain on Iraq and the Kurds
Middle East Report N°80
I. The Disputed Territories Conundrum
Territories in Dispute
The Saddam regime´s ouster reignited a dormant Arab-Kurdish conflict rooted in the Kurds´ quest for a homeland with a defined boundary. While the former regime recognised an autonomous Kurdish region in the 1970s, the latter incorporated only three governorates (Suleimaniya, Erbil and Dohuk), whose population was mostly Kurdish, with a smattering of Chaldo-Assyrians and Turkomans. The current conflict concerns the areas in between these Kurdish governorates and Iraq´s Arab heartland, a territory with a profoundly mixed population of Arabs, Kurds, Turkomans, Chaldo-Assyrians and others.
Although this territorial dispute has long antecedents, its current expression is of recent vintage (April 2003). 35 The areas in question were not even known as "territories" before the regime´s ouster; they had neither a name nor clearly defined borders. The dispute concerns one entire governorate – Kirkuk – and parts of four others – Ninewa, Salah al-Din, Diyala and Waset – whose boundaries (including of their districts and sub-districts) the former regime manipulated and from which it expelled Kurds and other non-Arabs as part of its Arabisation policies. 36
While recognising the historical presence of non-Kurds, the Kurds consider these areas to belong to "Kurdistan", an aspiring but notional nation-state that Kurds say stretches from Iraq´s borders with Turkey and Iran to a low ridge of mountains, the first one reached when travelling in a north-easterly direction from Baghdad, called Hamrin. The term Kurdistan has clear precedent in history, appearing on various maps from previous centuries. But there never was a state called Kurdistan, nor even a region with that name that had internationally recognised borders or borders with any longevity. Successive Ottoman regions such as Mosul Vilayet and Shahrazour, which the Kurds consider coterminous with Kurdistan, were relatively short-lived and even then fit the Kurdish jacket only poorly. 37
Kurds have been in a historical fight to assert their independence in an entity with clearly defined borders that roughly equates with what they consider their traditional homeland by virtue of having a majority, or at least significant, Kurdish presence. Until the present day this has been a struggle over land (who owns it? who rules it?), its people (who has the right to live there?) and its resources (who gets to develop these and profit from them?). Ever since the discovery of oil in the 1920s, the struggle has taken on a violent character marked by recurrent Kurdish insurgencies against central rule. These invariably have been met by brutal counter-insurgencies and insidious, ethnically-based policies designed to reduce non-Arab populations, especially the Kurds, who represent the largest and most potent rival national group. Kurds have been eager to break this cycle; they sensed opportunity in post-Saddam Iraq and their alliance with the U.S.
To the Kurds, there is no question what is meant by disputed territories. These are defined, they say, by the 2004 Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), 38 which was incorporated into the 2005 constitution. 39
Article 53(A) of the TAL states: "The Kurdistan Regional Government is recognised as the official government of the territories that were administered by that government on 19 March 2003 in the governorates of Dohuk, Arbil, Sulaimaniya, Kirkuk, Diyala and Neneveh". 40
While this does not define the disputed territories as such, it suggests they are territories that lay outside the Kurdistan region prior to the regime´s ouster.
Moreover, Article 58 refers to "certain regions, including Kirkuk", in which the "previous regime" carried out "practices in altering the demographic character … by deporting and expelling individuals from their places of residence, forcing migration in and out of the region, settling individuals alien to the region, depriving the inhabitants of work and correcting nationality"; 41 it also mentions manipulation of administrative boundaries for political ends.
While this language, apart from the explicit mention of Kirkuk, may appear vague, Kurdish officials hold that it has had concrete consequences by which the location of disputed territories can be determined:
The disputed territories are areas that were subject to demographic changes or were cut off from Kirkuk. Why is there an Article 140 office in Khanaqin? 42
Because it is disputed territory. You could also look at the location of property claims offices, which were established on the basis of a constitutional provision. 43 None was set up in Dohuk; it is not disputed territory. The same goes for Hilla [in the mid-Euphrates region]. Dibs [in Kirkuk governorate] does have a property claims office; people living in Altun Kupri go to Dibs to submit their claims. 44 These are all realities translated from the constitution. 45
This definition-by-criteria is not very helpful because, for one, property claims offices are located throughout Iraq, reflecting the widespread nature of property disputes that do not necessarily bear on the question of territorial status. Moreover, location and staffing of Article 140 offices have not been free of controversy.
A more helpful indicator of disputed territories is the list included in the Kurdistan region´s draft constitution. 46 However, this is a one-sided definition that itself is disputed, 47 and it only reflects territories claimed by the Kurds, not other territories that potentially fall under Article 140, such as parts of Anbar governorate that are claimed by Karbala and Najaf governorates. Kurdish officials say there are 26 disputed territories. 48
Even if one is to accept the Kurdish constitution´s definition as at least indicative of those disputed areas claimed by the Kurds, in each case the question arises: What are the criteria to be employed in determining whether an area originally belonged to a notional Kurdistan? Historical maps and documents have been employed by all sides to boost their contradictory cases, thereby underscoring the indisputable fact that there is a dispute. Iraq´s 1957 population census has been suggested as a scientific basis for deciding who constituted a majority and where at that time, but that was more than 50 years ago and therefore does not cover half a century of natural population growth and migration unrelated to politically-motivated and ethnically-based demographic changes. It is questionable whether an ethnic group´s demographic majority or plurality in a given area so long ago, or at any time in the past, should be the decisive criterion for determining that area´s political status today.
Given the emotive power of ethnically-based conflicts that run across centuries, it is unlikely that the struggle between members of not two but three of Iraq´s ethnic groups – Arabs, Kurds and Turkomans – will be resolved to their collective satisfaction. The most that can be expected under current circumstances is a temporary agreement covering some geographic areas. This in turn could produce agreement on a Kurdistan region boundary that might buy peace for a generation or more. The UN entered the fray in 2007 with this objective in mind.
A New UN Role
UNAMI began looking at possible alternatives once it became evident in early 2007 that the Article 140 process was unlikely to produce a referendum by the December deadline, and fear arose that non-implementation could raise tensions in the disputed territories – especially in Kirkuk, where stakes are highest – exacerbate Arab-Kurdish tensions and potentially invite military intervention by neighbouring states. This prompted an informal proposal, presented to federal government and KRG leaders, that they should invite the UN to shepherd a process aimed at identifying an acceptable border of the Kurdistan region; it would do this by designating districts along that border as belonging to either federal government or KRG jurisdiction. Each ruling would be based on a number of criteria, including results of the December 2005 parliamentary elections at the district level.
The premise was that the great majority of Iraqis living in these districts would have voted according to their ethnicity, given that most parties are either predominantly Arab or Kurdish or Turkoman. In so doing, it was believed, they would indirectly have suggested their preference for that district´s territorial and political status. 49 The district-based results have not been made public but were available to UNAMI through its association with the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) that organised the 2005 elections. 50
The way forward had two stages: formal expansion of UNAMI´s mandate and a more prominent UNAMI role once the referendum deadline had passed. On 10 August 2007, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1770, instructing UNAMI and the special representative for Iraq, "at the request of the Government of Iraq", to "advise, support, and assist … the Government of Iraq and the Council of Representatives … on the development of processes acceptable to the Government of Iraq to resolve disputed internal boundaries". 51 A month later, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed Sweden´s Staffan de Mistura to replace Ashraf Qazi of Pakistan as his special representative for Iraq. De Mistura´s first public act was to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay implementation of Article 140 given that they were going to miss the deadline. This cleared the way for a fresh approach.
UNAMI could not have assumed this new role without active U.S. backing. As part of the surge, Washington´s strategy had undergone a remarkable makeover in 2007, including an alliance with former Sunni Arab insurgents, who set up awakening (sahwa) councils. 52 This alliance had consequences for U.S. relations with its post-2003 allies, the ruling parties. The Kurds in particular felt the impact keenly. A series of events in the second half of the year suggested that the U.S. began to shift from supporting the Kurds´ approach on Kirkuk (ie, that the issue should be resolved via Article 140) to backing a negotiated settlement.
The Security Council resolution was the first such event. It instructed UNAMI to identify "processes" (ie, not solely the Article 140 process) that were "acceptable to the Government of Iraq" (no mention of the KRG) to resolve "disputed internal boundaries" (ie, rather than the status of disputed territories, as the constitution demands). In permitting processes other than Article 140, the international community, and particularly Washington as the resolution´s lead author, appeared to signal a departure from exclusive reliance on the constitution.
The Kurds thus took two hits: rhetorically, the UN did not feel bound to a constitution that the Kurds, in its operative clauses on the disputed territories, had phrased in their self-interest; practically, the outcome of UN efforts would be unpredictable, unlike the Article 140 process, which the Kurds had carefully designed to produce incorporation of all the disputed territories they claim into the Kurdistan region. For example, negotiations could force a territorial compromise in which the Kurds would obtain only some of the disputed territories, perhaps excluding Kirkuk; or they could perpetuate the status quo. Moreover, negotiations would take time, while the Kurds had hoped to rush the process based on Article 140´s deadline.
The Kurds suffered a second setback in early December, when the parties´ representatives in Kirkuk were led to accept a U.S.-mediated, limited power-sharing agreement with local Arab politicians. 53 In an apparent quid pro quo, the U.S. brought these politicians, whom it had mistrusted for being allied with insurgents, into the political process after leaders of the Al-Jabour tribe set up an awakening council in the Hawija district in November and began attacking local members of al-Qaeda in Iraq. 54 Kurdish leaders had long resisted coming to an accord with Arab or Turkoman parties that did not reinforce the paramountcy of Article 140. The 2 December agreement, however, made no reference to that article.
In part, this could be explained by its focus on power sharing rather than territorial status, but this had never before prevented the Kurds from inserting Article 140 language. Delighted by the first locally negotiated compromise agreement in all of Iraq since the start of the surge, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travelled to Kirkuk to congratulate local leaders. To the Kurds, the very fact they had been brought to sign it indicated an end to the no-questions-asked alliance with the U.S. over Kirkuk.
This message was brought home even more jarringly, in Kurdish eyes, by the start of a mid-December Turkish bombing campaign targeting suspected hideouts of the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan, the PKK) in the Kurdistan region. 55 While Turkey declared it had only the PKK in its sights, Kurdish commentators alleged that the KRG was the real target, 56 and that Washington must have agreed to the bombing. 57 The Kurds saw the event as a signal the U.S. was setting limits on Kurdish autonomy and thus reaffirming Iraq´s territorial integrity, as well as a reminder that U.S. support was contingent on Kurds´ willingness to subscribe to America´s agenda, for example with respect to the awakening councils. 58 U.S. officials routinely deny the existence of a grand plan to dampen Kurdish ambitions in the disputed territories and have stressed the need for all parties to act within the constitutional framework. 59 At the same time, the U.S. also has asserted its strong backing for the UN´s efforts to find a solution that, by force of circumstance, will differ dramatically from the Kurds´ favoured course. 60
In June 2008, three weeks before the new referendum deadline expired, UNAMI presented the Iraqi government with what it termed phase one of a three-step process "regarding possible processes to resolve disputed internal boundaries". Still testing the waters, UNAMI selected four "sample" districts as part of a strategy "to develop a methodology which could be applied to these and other disputed areas for the consideration of the Government of Iraq". And it emphasised, in de Mistura´s words, "the Government of Iraq alone has the sovereign responsibility to decide on the process and methodology used to address disputed internal boundaries. UNAMI´s aim in preparing and presenting this analysis is merely to contribute to the development of processes to resolve these complicated and sensitive issues". 61
The proposal was interesting for its selection of districts, its choice of criteria that would yield the data for assessing their appropriate status, its judgment in each specific case and, not least, its style of presentation, which sought to avoid conflict over UNAMI´s role through diplomatic ambiguity. For example, rather than making express recommendations, UNAMI chose indirect phrases that showed deference to Iraqi sovereignty and awareness of its own limited mandate. 62
Moreover, its proposals involved the four districts´ administrative affiliation with governorates, not (at least explicitly) their territorial status under either the federal government´s or the KRG´s authority; by proposing administrative arrangements, it steered clear of highlighting, and potentially exacerbating, the toxic Arab-Kurdish conflict. Nevertheless, UNAMI´s suggestions were indeed recommendations, which in the Kurdish street were widely interpreted as decisions. 63
The four "initial" districts were Aqri (or Akre), Hamdaniya, Makhmour and Mandali. Of these, Aqri lies within the Kurdistan region, and as such the KRG does not deem it disputed (see below). UNAMI chose it because, while it has been administered by Dohuk governorate since 1991, it belongs formally to Ninewa governorate; UNAMI´s view was that its administration should be transferred formally to Dohuk, a belated procedure of no material impact, a simple codification of existing reality. The other three districts were under Iraqi government control until April 2003 and as such are more typical of disputed territories (especially as defined by the Kurds). Since the Baathist regime´s fall they have experienced varying degrees of Kurdish control: direct and formal in the case of Makhmour, which is heavily Kurdish and administratively belongs to Erbil governorate (even if it was administered by Ninewa in 1991-2003), and less so in highly mixed Hamdaniya and Mandali. 64
UNAMI recommended that Makhmour district be administered by Erbil, except for its sub-district of Qaraj, which has a significant Arab population and which, it suggested, could be attached administratively to a neighbouring district and governorate (presumably either Ninewa or Kirkuk). 65 And UNAMI proposed that Hamdaniya continue to be administered by Ninewa governorate and Mandali by Diyala governorate.
The choice of districts indicated a preference, in the first stage, for areas that could be considered non-controversial: on their merits their assignation would be unlikely to provoke a strong backlash, mainly because they were either clearly and predominantly Kurdish (Aqri and Makhmour minus Qaraj) or decidedly not so (Hamdaniya and Mandali). Moreover, in an effort to present a semblance of balance, UNAMI chose two districts that it assigned, in effect, to KRG and two to federal government authority.
UNAMI´s criteria included (in the order in which it listed them): a district´s administrative history, changes since March 2003, government service delivery, demographics and the December 2005 parliamentary elections, socio-economic conditions (as indicators of control), claims and compensation (as indicators of previous manipulation), and security conditions. They focused on the extent to which Arabisation (rather than non-ethnically-based state-building processes) had changed administrative and demographic realities. While they included recognition of the December 2005 election results as at least suggestive of the local population´s political preferences, UNAMI played down the utility of past electoral data in predicting voting behaviour in a referendum on a given area´s status. 66 And instead of a referendum, for which UNAMI felt it had not been given sufficient time and which raised serious security concerns, it polled the population´s preferences via a series of local consultations.
Responses to UNAMI´s Proposals
The moment UNAMI published its proposal on 5 June, it was met with a round of public condemnations – an outburst of Arab Iraqi, Kurdish and Turkoman/
Turkish nationalism united in rejection of the international intercession that had been invited for want of a locally generated solution. 67 This initial response showed the difficult road ahead even as it unintentionally underlined UNAMI´s impartiality. Discussions with key stakeholders, however, bear out that underneath the denunciations lay what appeared to be acceptance of UNAMI´s approach as the only viable one.
Kurdish leaders expressed disappointment only with specific recommendations, not the overall perspective. They criticised UNAMI´s criteria, which they claimed did not reflect prior agreement. For example, Mohammed Ihsan, the KRG official responsible for the disputed territories file, referred to "a methodological paper" that, according to him, all sides had accepted in late 2007 and posited that UNAMI´s views would be based primarily on the district-level results of the December 2005 parliamentary elections. 68 Likewise, Qader Aziz, Masoud Barzani´s special envoy on the Article 140 process, asserted: "Our agreement with de Mistura was that if the referendum didn´t work out, we would rely on the December 2005 elections instead. But he didn´t even do that in his recommendations". 69
Like any aspect of the disputed territories question, use of the 2005 elections results is problematic. As Kurds see it, those elections provide persuasive guidance about an ethnic group´s preference to join the Kurdistan region or stay under Baghdad. Thus, they say, if in Mandali district the Kurdish list received 25 per cent of the votes, this means that 25 per cent of the population are Kurds; on this basis it would be difficult to question UNAMI´s recommendation to keep Mandali under the administration of Diyala governorate (ie, under the federal government). By the same token, if only 5 per cent of the population of Zummar district in Ninewa governorate voted for Arab parties and the rest for the Kurdish list, then logically Zummar should be attached to the Kurdistan region. 70 Kosrat Rasoul Ali, the KRG vice president, called on UNAMI to publish the district-level election results. 71
However, non-Kurdish politicians question use of the 2005 results, contending that the elections were marred by fraud and preceded by demographic changes that stacked the electoral deck:
We agree that if an area is 70 per cent Kurdish, it should go to the KRG. But we say that all these [disputed] areas have been subject to demographic manipulation [since April 2003]. So we would need to first reverse those changes. Only then could we go back to determining these areas´ status. Moreover, if you use elections as a basis for this, the Kurds will have all the more reason to manipulate the next elections. There were many complaints about the 2005 elections. 72
For now, the Kurds appear to have decided that while they will quibble about specific elements of the phase one recommendations, they will not take a formal position. They publicly criticised inclusion of Aqri 73 and the suggestions made for Qaraj, Hamdaniya and Mandali, areas they consider historically part of Kurdistan regardless of current population make-up (which, they say, results from demographic manipulation). Instead, they first want to see the whole package, ie, all three stages, including Kirkuk. As Kosrat Rasoul Ali put it:
UNAMI was supposed to give us technical support, not to provide political solutions. This proposal only complicates things further. We are now waiting for phases two and three; perhaps they will be better. We cannot reject the project until we have seen everything. In fact, it would be better to reveal all three stages at once and not deal with Kirkuk separately. 74
Other Kurdish officials have echoed this approach. A senior KRG official said, "we don´t oppose the report, but we want to deal with UNAMI´s proposals as a single package. And then we will compromise". 75 In other words, they appear to be suggesting a possible territorial deal.
Arab politicians appeared of different minds about UNAMI´s proposal, perhaps reflecting a lack of internal cohesion and debate. Rakan Saeed, the deputy governor of Kirkuk appointed following the December 2007 Arab-Kurdish agreement, called it a "partition plan": "We reject it. UNAMI did not consult us. We spoke with them but not specifically about majorities and minorities in these districts". 76 The better way forward, he suggested, was for UNAMI to seek consensus on Kirkuk provincial elections.
Feeling re-empowered through U.S. support of the awakening councils, Kirkuk´s Arabs hope to perform a good deal better in provincial elections than they did in January 2005 when many, for one reason or another, stayed away from the polls. Through greater representation on the council, they intend to push back Kurdish power in Kirkuk and complicate the quest to incorporate it into Kurdistan via Article 140, UNAMI´s method or otherwise.
Another Arab leader was more positive, calling the proposal "balanced", but he echoed Kurdish leaders in stating that what matters, in the end, is Kirkuk. 77 Likewise, the head of the Hawija awakening council indicated he liked aspects of the proposal, for example concerning Qaraj, but expressed disquiet at what he described as Kurdish efforts to "buy people in Qaraj, as well as in Hawija and in Baghdad". 78
Perhaps the strongest opposition came from the Turkomans. Hassan Turan, a Kirkuk provincial council member, criticised UNAMI for its reliance on the December 2005 election results (see above) and accused de Mistura of pro-Kurdish bias in calling to delay Article 140´s implementation (rather than considering it null and void) and unilaterally naming the disputed territories. 79 However, he supported UNAMI´s general approach, as long as it sought the council of representatives´ approval of a definition of disputed territories and dealt with all of them (i.e., including areas far from Kurdistan, such as Anbar/Karbala/Najaf and Baghdad vs. Salah al-Din over Dujeil). For UNAMI to fail to address all disputed internal boundaries, he said, would "raise suspicions about its motives". 80
The federal government´s position remained unclear. An independent Kurdish member of the Kirkuk provincial council, who said he embraced UNAMI´s proposal, called on the government to show its hand:
We should press Maliki on whether he is prepared to implement UNAMI´s recommendations: Are you ready to deal with this? We should test his will and that of the presidency council. This is an international document; it´s serious. We cannot just reject it out of hand. This is a big game with big players. 81
There is no indication that the Maliki government, to which UNAMI addressed its "first analysis", has taken any steps to act on the proposals. Most likely it decided to wait for phases two (Tel Afar, Tel Qaif, Sheikhan and Sinjar districts in Ninewa governorate and Khanaqin district in Diyala governorate) and three (Kirkuk), 82 which UNAMI now says have been combined into a single report it hopes to release by late November 2008. In any case, non-action would make sense: the government has a stake in the status quo insofar as the Kurds are at a natural disadvantage in having to prod the government to action.
In July, UNAMI´s awaited proposal on Kirkuk was overtaken by the imbroglio over the provincial elections law and, following this in August, the Iraqi army´s move into disputed districts in Diyala governorate. It seemed that the combination of greater assertiveness by the Maliki government and the relatively passive U.S. role had dealt a setback to Kurds´ prospects in Kirkuk and other disputed territories they claim without resolving anything. Once again, UNAMI was expected to produce fresh proposals to break the deadlock. Although after two months it helped defuse the crisis over the provincial elections law by proposing a separate mechanism for Kirkuk, the experience drove home the need to search for a "grand bargain" that would include settlement of the hydrocarbons question and the constitution review.
Notes
35 The term "disputed territories" did not enter the Iraqi legal lexicon until it was mentioned in Article 58(C) of the 2004 Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), the interim constitution.
36. Arabisation took many other forms as well, such as job discrimination, property confiscation and induced departure. Kurdish parties have produced an extensive documentary record of it and their own victimisation. See, for example, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan´s multi-volume Ethnic Cleansing Documents in Kurdistan – Iraq (2004), which is available on CD-ROM; also, Nouri Talabany, Arabization of the Kirkuk Region (London, 1995). Arabisation was taken to its bloody conclusion in the 1988 Anfal campaign, when tens of thousands of civilians were removed from Kirkuk-area villages and summarily killed. See Human Rights Watch, Iraq´s Crime of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds (New Haven and London, 1995).
37. Mosul Vilayet incorporated the major Arab city of Mosul and its Arab hinterland. Over time, Kurds migrated to Mosul as they did to other Iraqi cities, including Baghdad. Today, they do not lay claim to Mosul (or Baghdad) as part of Kurdistan.
38. The TAL was the country´s interim constitution, signed on 8 March 2004. Drafted in English rather than Arabic, its original version can be found on the website of the (now defunct) Coalition Provisional Authority, www.cpa-iraq.org/government/TAL.html.
39. Article 143 of the constitution reads: "The Administrative Law of Iraq for the Transitional Period and its Annex shall be annulled upon the seating of the new government, except for what is mentioned in Article 53(A) and Article 58".
40. The territories under KRG control on 19 March 2003 included the entire governorates of Dohuk, Erbil and Suleimaniya and parts of Diyala (Kifri) and Ninewa (Aqri), as well as parts of Kirkuk based on pre-1968 administrative boundaries (Chamchamal).
41. The term "nationality correction" (tashih al-jinsiya) refers to the former regime´s practice of encouraging non-Arabs to register themselves as Arabs in the population register in areas marked for Arabisation, such as Kirkuk, by making certain jobs, permits and property rights there available only to Arabs.
42. Following ratification of the constitution in October 2005, the Iraqi government established the Article 140 Committee as well as local Article 140 "offices". These have been used to collect claims for compensation from both Arab families who have indicated they would be willing to leave the district in which they were registered as part of Arabisation and Kurdish as well as Turkoman families seeking to return to their original places of residence.
43. In early 2004, the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which governed Iraq from May 2003, established the Iraq Property Claims Commission to receive and adjudicate claims for property restitution as a remedy for confiscations carried out by the former regime under Arabisation. The commission opened 32 offices accessible to the public in localities across Iraq, including at least one in every governorate. In March 2006, the commission was rebaptised the Commission for the Resolution of Real Property Disputes and its mandate slightly amended. Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, Commission for the Resolution of Real Property Disputes, information sheet, 24 April 2006.
44 Kurds do not take this to mean that Altun Kupri is excluded from the disputed territories. But there are only a limited number of property claims offices. The example is, therefore, not particularly helpful.
45. Crisis Group interview, Rizgar Ali, president of the Kirkuk provincial council, Kirkuk, 18 June 2008.
46. Article 2(1) of the draft constitution reads: "Iraqi Kurdistan consists of the Governorate of Dahuk in its current administrative boundaries; the governorates of Kirkuk, Al-Sulaymaniyah, and Arbil; the districts of Aqra, Al-Shaykhan, Sinjar, Tall Afar, Tall Kayf, Qarqush; and the sub-districts of Zammar, Ba´shiqah, Aski Kalak from the Governorate of Ninawa; the sub-districts of Khanaqin and Mandali from the Governorate of Diyala; the district of Badra and the subdistrict of Jassan from the Governorate of Wasit in its administrative boundaries before the year 1968". The phrase "in its administrative boundaries before the year 1968", which appears to apply to more than Wasit, is significant because in the Kirkuk case it would include districts (notably heavily Turkoman Tuz Khurmatu) that currently are in Salah al-Din governorate, which is not explicitly mentioned.
47. Some non-Kurds contend that because the constitution fails to specify disputed territories other than Kirkuk, certain mixed-population areas not mentioned by the Kurds could be included, for example the town of Erbil inside Kurdistan, which has a Turkoman population. Crisis Group interview, Hassan Turan, Kirkuk provincial council member for the Turkoman Justice Party, Kirkuk, 18 June 2008, who mentioned a Turkoman party, the Turkoman Nationalists Group (Tajammu´ Qawmiyin al-Turkman), that claims Erbil is disputed territory. This does not appear reasonable, however, as the Kurdistan region was recognised explicitly by Article 53(A) of the 2004 Transitional Administrative Law (incorporated into the permanent constitution through Article 143). A Chaldo-Assyrian politician contended that Article 140 also should be applied to Dohuk, given its many property disputes. He claimed the old regime had given Chaldean and Assyrian land to Kurds. Crisis Group interview, Kirkuk, 22 June 2008.
48. Crisis Group interview, Dindar Zebari, chief coordinator, KRG office for the coordinator for UN affairs, Erbil, 17 June 2008.
49. That Iraqis voted according to their ethnicity and thereby signalled preferences for their district´s status is questionable – and has indeed been challenged by Arab and Turkoman politicians. (See below.)
50. The IECI only released the nationwide results by electoral list.
51. UNSC, S/RES/1770, available at http://daccessdds.un.org/
doc/UNDOC/GEN/N07/456/04/PDF/N0745604.pdf?Open
Element.
52. For analysis, see Crisis Group Middle East Report N°74, Iraq After the Surge I: The New Sunni Landscape, 30 April 2008.
53. The two sides agreed to set up a city council on which the three main communities would each take six seats and the Christians three, and to share positions in Kirkuk´s executive branch and civil service on a 32-32-32-4 per cent formula. As part of the accord, the Kurds also committed themselves, inter alia, to transferring Kirkuki detainees from prisons inside the Kurdistan region to Kirkuk; an end to illegal arrests by "unofficial security agencies" (a reference to security agencies of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, KDP, and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, PUK); the departure of these security agencies; and the creation of a broadly representative national security directorate in Kirkuk. "Text of Final Agreement between Kirkuk Brotherhood List and the Iraqi Republican Group List", Kirkuk, 2 December 2007, in Crisis Group possession.
54 Crisis Group interview, Husein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, head of the Hawija awakening council and the Hawija district council, Kirkuk, 22 June 2008.
55. Although Turkey had pursued the PKK inside Iraq in the past, no such attack had taken place after 2003, reflecting in part the sharp deterioration in U.S.-Turkish relations following the Ankara parliament´s 1 March 2003 denial of transit to U.S. forces on their way to Iraq: with the U.S. in effect sovereign in Iraq, Turkey could not cross the border without an explicit U.S. green light.
56. For example, Azad Aslan, editor of the KDP´s English-language paper, said, "Turkish air strikes on Southern Kurdistan a few days ago indicate the determination of the Turkish state to destabilise [the] Kurdistan Region and terrorise the Kurds in the north. The military does that with the pretext of PKK". The Kurdish Globe, 17 December 2007. A Turkish journalist close to Kurdish leaders said, "The Iraqi Kurdish leadership is obsessed by the fear that Turkey´s real intention is not to go after the PKK in northern Iraq but to put them out of business. This is why the KRG is sceptical of Turkey´s constant demands concerning the PKK´s presence inside its territory and is unmotivated to act against the PKK in cooperation with Turkey". Crisis Group interview, Cengiz Çandar, Istanbul, 23 January 2008.
57. They based this claim on overarching U.S. security control in Iraq and the fact that Ankara and Washington had come to an agreement on security coordination against the PKK a month earlier, the precise terms of which were not disclosed. On 5 November 2007, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met President George W. Bush at the White House. Coordination and cooperation against the PKK was defined in four fields: The U.S. would share operational intelligence, assist in capturing PKK leaders and returning them to Turkey, seek to close PKK camps to cut logistics support and coordinate on Turkey´s military operations in northern Iraq.
58. The blow was hardly softened by Rice´s Kirkuk visit, two days after the first Turkish bombing raid: KRG President Masoud Barzani pointedly refused to meet with her in Baghdad. Middle East Online, 18 December 2007. For an argument that the window of opportunity opened to the Kurds with the establishment of the U.S.-led safe haven in 1991 and widened with the 2003 invasion of Iraq started to close in 2007, see Joost R. Hiltermann, "To Protect or to Project? Iraqi Kurds and Their Future", Middle East Report, no. 247, summer 2008.
59. For example, the State Department declared in July 2008: "[T]he issue of Kirkuk is one that´s been carved out in the Iraqi constitutional process, and there is a political constitutional process to deal with issues surrounding Kirkuk…. [T]here is a political and constitutional framework that is established in which the Iraqis are going to resolve finally questions relating to Kirkuk". Daily Press Briefing, Washington DC, 29 July 2008.
60. The Kurds are quick to point at a perceived U.S. role in events that do not directly involve the U.S. For example, a Kurdish writer accused Washington of allowing the Iraqi army in August 2008 to enter Khanaqin, a disputed area controlled by the Kurdish parties, as revenge for Kurdish obstructionism on the hydrocarbons law. Opinion piece by Twana Ahmed in Kurdistani Nwé (a daily affiliated with the PUK), 4 September 2008.
61 "UNAMI presents first analysis to GOI to help resolve … disputed internal boundaries", UN News Centre, 5 June 2008, at www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=26930&Cr=iraq&Cr1=unami. The online version does not include the discussion of the four districts and future steps.
62. On Hamdaniya, for example, UNAMI phrased its recommendation as: "[T]he Government of Iraq may wish to continue administration of the Hamdaniya District by the Ninewa Governorate". On Mandali it was even more indirect: "Administration of Mandali sub-district by the Diyala Governorate would be a continuation of the historical administrative arrangement".
63. Crisis Group interviews, Kurdistan region, 16-30 June 2008. The Kurds tend to have a dim view of Iraqi sovereignty. A Kurdish writer agreed that UNAMI had issued only recommendations but, he said, "the Kurdish people are reminded of Lausanne", the 1926 treaty that overturned the 1923 Treaty of Sèvres, which the Kurds claim promised them an independent state. "The Kurds fear that because they are the weaker party, they will become victims of conspiracies". Crisis Group interview, Salam Abdallah, Khanaqin, 25 June 2008.
64. Disputed districts not already administratively under one of the three Kurdish governorates (Erbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk), that is all except Makhmour, as well as Aqri (if it is considered disputed), have suffered from neglect since April 2003. In theory they were administered by the governorate in which they were, but if the Kurds were in charge, the governorate appeared less likely to extend a budget and services, unless the Kurdish parties themselves had a strong influence in that governorate. The people of Khanaqin district, for example, in Diyala governorate, have complained of neglect since 2003 and claim that whatever aid they received came from Suleimaniya (in particular, salaries for civil servants transferred from there to Khanaqin) or resulted from the pressure of the president of the Diyala governorate council (not an executive position), who is a Kurd. Crisis Group interviews, Khanaqin, 24-25 June 2008. In Makhmour district, which technically falls under Ninewa governorate but in effect is administered by Erbil, the complaints were the same. Crisis Group interviews, Makhmour, 21 June 2008.
65. Kirkuk´s undecided status may be the reason UNAMI did not specify to which governorate Qaraj should be attached. Qaraj lies on the border with Kirkuk governorate, so adherence to Kirkuk would make administrative sense. However, if Kirkuk were to join the Kurdistan region, the federal government might want to attach Qaraj to Ninewa instead.
66.UNAMI stressed that the 2005 election results "should not be construed as indicating a preference by the population for changing administrative jurisdictions". Moreover, it "recognised that many complaints have been made regarding the conduct of those elections in these areas, including allegations of fraud, intimidation, and irregularities". "UNAMI presents first analysis", op. cit.
67. Prior to UNAMI´s involvement, all parties had made clear they welcomed a UN role on Kirkuk, even if they doubted its credibility and impartiality. Many invoked the UN´s entanglement in a corruption scandal during the food-for-oil program in the 1990s. Others saw it as a regime tool during that period. However, they also recognised the lack of a viable alternative after 2003 and especially once the U.S. lost favour as an honest broker when civil war engulfed the country, a condition it managed to reverse only partially with the surge. After the June 2008 announcement of phase one, some of that past was alluded to. For example, a KRG official said, "the report is disappointing. We had expected a better understanding of the issues. We had a bitter experience with the UN before and were promised that this time it would be a better UN. When the UN came to us, we said it should help us in implementing Article 140….They met with people they should not have met, however: they should not have brought in neighbouring states. We hope the next report will be better". Crisis Group interview, Falah Mustafa Bakir, chief of KRG foreign relations department, Erbil, 29 June 2008.
68. Crisis Group interview, Erbil, 20 June 2008. Ihsan claimed the paper had been signed by the same five officials who had agreed to delay implementation of Article 140 in late 2007 (see fn. 16 above). He offered to give Crisis Group a copy of the paper but has not. There is no evidence that if such a paper exists it was signed by those five leaders. No other stakeholders mentioned they had seen it or approved the methodology it supposedly endorses.
69. Crisis Group interview, Suleimaniya, 26 June 2008.
70. Crisis Group interview, Mohammed Ihsan, KRG minister for extra-regional affairs, Erbil, 20 June 2008. In fact, Arabs in Zummar achieved not 5 but 21.3 percent of the vote and the Kurdish parties 73 per cent (still a clear majority).
71. Crisis Group interview, Suleimaniya, 23 June 2008.
72. Crisis Group interview, Hassan Turan, Kirkuk provincial council member, Turkoman Justice Party, Kirkuk, 18 June 2008.
73. By including Aqri district and assigning it to the KRG, Kurdish officials say, UNAMI did no favour, because it has been within the Kurdistan region and under direct KRG control since 1991; in their view it is not disputed. In the absence of an agreed definition of a disputed territory, however, an area is bound to become one the moment a party disputes it. The Kurds had mentioned Aqri as a disputed district that belonged to the Kurdistan region and could be settled early on in the years before UNAMI´s involvement. In 2008 UNAMI briefed Kurdish officials about the intended inclusion of Aqri in the first phase, meeting no objection. Those officials´ turnaround came only after the proposal´s announcement in June was publicly derided in Kurdistan.
74. Crisis Group interview, Suleimaniya, 23 June 2008.
75. Crisis Group interview, Karim Sinjari, KRG minister of state for the interior for the KDP (there are parallel state ministers, due to the unfinished process of integrating the two Kurdish administrations, an outcome of their internecine conflict in the mid-1990s), Erbil, 29 June 2008. He also said, "we are open to debate. Everything should be resolved through negotiations".
76. Crisis Group interview, Kirkuk, 19 June 2008. UNAMI has countered the charge it did not consult with Saeed about these four districts by saying it discussed only Kirkuk with him, a matter within his jurisdiction, not districts in other governorates. Crisis Group email communication, 28 September 2008.
77. Crisis Group interview, Sa´doun Fandy, head of the Arab Consultative Council, Kirkuk, 22 June 2008.
78. "They have lots of money". Crisis Group interview, Husein Ali Saleh al-Jabouri, Kirkuk, 22 June 2008. A Chaldo-Assyrian politician similarly expressed support for UNAMI´s proposal, lauding its recommendation on Hamdaniya as "close to reality" and expressing hope it would make a similar recommendation regarding Tel Qaif, a district with a significant Chaldo-Assyrian population that could be joined with Hamdaniya, he suggested, to form a "local administration", or possibly even a separate governorate, under Articles 116 and 125 of the constitution. Crisis Group interview, Kirkuk, 22 June 2008. Article 116 states: "The federal system in the Republic of Iraq is made up of a decentralised capital, regions and governorates, as well as local administrations". Article 125 states, under the title "Local Administrations": "This constitution shall guarantee the administrative, political, cultural and educational rights of the various national groups, such as the Turkomans, Chaldeans and Assyrians, and all other groups. This shall be regulated by law".
79. Crisis Group interview, Hassan Turan, provincial council member, Kirkuk, 7 October 2008. In an earlier interview, he explained de Mistura´s alleged pro-Kurdish bias as follows: "De Mistura has a theory that he should always appease the Kurds, lest they use force, triggering civil war and foreign intervention. This theory is wrong. The Kurds are not in a position to use force. They only threaten this – for media purposes. Were they to use force, they would lose everything they have gained since 1991". Crisis Group interview, Kirkuk, 18 June 2008.
80. Crisis Group interview, Kirkuk, 18 June 2008.
81. Crisis Group interview, Awad Amin, Kirkuk provincial council member nominally for the Kurdistan Toilers´ Party, Kirkuk, 19 June 2008.
82. This includes districts adjoining Kirkuk currently administered from other neighbouring governorates, for example Tuz Khurmatu in Salah al-Din governorate. The restoration of Kirkuk governorate´s pre-1968 boundaries, first authorised by Article 58 of the TAL, has proven to be one of Iraq´s most intractable political problems, given the stakes involved: should some of Kirkuk´s original districts that are heavily Kurdish (such as Chamchamal, as opposed to Tuz Khurmatu, which is heavily Turkoman) return to Kirkuk, and should a referendum be held, Kurds would use their new absolute majority to attach Kirkuk to the Kurdistan region. The process is complicated by the question whether restoration should apply only to Kirkuk´s pre-1968 boundaries or to all eighteen governorates´ pre-1968 boundaries (for example, including those of Anbar/Najaf/Karbala); and whether all of Kirkuk´s pre-1968 districts should be considered or only some, for example those that are predominantly Kurdish.
Note
Picture: A map revealing the evil plans of chaos spread by the Apostate Freemasonic Lodge that controls London, Paris and Washington.
Online editions of Prof. Dr. M. S. Megalommatis´ book on the "Turkish – Greek Relations and the Balkans" are available here:
http://community.webshots.com/user/turkeygreecemegalommatis (in Turkish) and http://community.webshots.com/user/greeceturkeymegalommatis (in Albanian)
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