The Kirkuk issue

Shortly a critical referendum will be held in Northern Iraq to determine the future of the important city of Kirkuk. There are real fears that the aspirations of the Kurds to reclaim the city as an integral part of the Kurdish region will be sabotaged.

If the referendum is held and the decision made to join Iraqi Kurdistan, what will the implications be for other minority groups and the relations with Turkey?

Anyone seeking familiarity with the history of the region need only read Nikiteen's Les Kurdes, which is a history of the Kurds. In May 1958, in his preface to this book, the renowned orientalist, Louis Massignon, wrote that co-operation between the mountain Kurds and the Seljuki Turks allowed them to jointly occupy Anatolia. He added that if this co-operation could be re-established and their small differences resolved, they would play an important role in this region of the Middle East.

In the last 30 years, however, everything has changed as a result of the policy of the Arabisation of the Kirkuk region. The 1957 census is the last one which is accepted as legitimate. Today, any individual or group claiming to have the exact statistics of the numbers of Kurds, Turkmans, Arabs and others, is doing so for his own political ends and is not to be believed.

Today, we face an entirely new situation arising from the elections for the Kirkuk Provisional Council held in January 2005. Some people chose not to participate and, consequently, do not accept its result. But the strange thing is that every group is represented in the Council, including those critics of it.

As for myself, I see the Kirkuk issue not as a question of minority or majority, but as a lack of trust in each other which must be overcome. To succeed, we have to find a way to return to the pre-1958 situation when all groups lived peacefully together. This will not be easy, but we should not be discouraged as there still exist areas in Kirkuk where this is the norm. This proves that the problem is not one of ethnicity but of misunderstanding, often caused by outside interference.

From the creation of the Iraqi state, the Central Government constantly tried to undermine and manipulate relations between Kurds and Turkmans, forcing them both to accept the Government's policy. For instance, an Arab was always appointed as Director of Education in Kirkuk. The Kurdish community was encouraged to believe that the Turkmans would never allow them to decide their own policies, and vice versa, if the Director was from either of their communities.

After the fall of the Ba'athist regime in April 2003, the threat came from some extreme Arab organisations and from certain other regional states that were interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. They used the Arab and international media to disseminate propaganda against the Kurds, accusing them of wanting the "Kurdishisation" of Kirkuk!

In truth, the real interest of all these groups is Kirkuk's oil. By acts of terrorism, the killing of innocent people, and threats against anyone who does not agree with their policies, they aim to make the city insecure.

Their ultimate goal is to prevent the referendum taking place in the time stated according to Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution. They use terrorism as a means of ensuring that the situation in Kirkuk remains as it was under Saddam Hussein and the Ba'athist regime, when the regime controlled the oil revenue and thousands of donams (1 donam = 2,500 square metres) of prime agricultural land was taken by new Arab settlers.

But the Kirkuk region belongs geographically to the Kurdistan region and, even if there were not one drop of oil there, the Kurds would continue to press for this. They do not claim that Kirkuk is a city populated by Kurds alone, but say repeatedly, that there has always been a mix of ethnic groups who lived peacefully together and that every effort should be made to enable them to do so again and to reinstate the principles which governed their lives in the past.

It is not the original Turkman families of Kirkuk who are responsible for attempts to sour relations between Kurds and Turkmans but those who are under outside influence. Many ex-leaders of the “Turkman Front” have spoken of their dealings with various officials of the Iraqi Security Services and say that they were unable to take any decision without consulting them.

Those elements should be rejected. If Kirkuk province becomes a part of the Kurdish region, the number of Turkman MPs in the Parliament of Kurdistan would increase and they would get more ministerial posts - possibly even the post of Assistant Prime Minister.

What then of the potentially destabilising presence of the PKK in southern Kurdistan and the threat by the Turkish army to invade Kurdistan's territory? Are the suggestions that the Turkish army will intervene in northern Iraq serious? In my estimation that threat was linked to internal problems within the army, the government and some political parties during the recent election. The two sides of Turkish politics are trying to take their problem outside Turkey and to make it appear that they are bargaining with each other - the army supported by some political parties on the one side and the government on the other.

The real question should be: why doesn’t the Turkish government instigate a dialogue with representatives of the Kurdish community in Turkey? The official Turkish response is that the PKK is regarded as a terrorist organisation, not only by Turkey, but by the United States and several European countries besides.

My response to this is to cite the case of Israel who, for more than half a century, considered the PLO to be a terrorist organisation but who later met with them in Oslo and Washington and are increasingly negotiating to resolve their problems.

The same thing happened in Northern Ireland, in Spain, in South Africa and in Southern Sudan. For so many years, thousands of civilians were killed in those bloody conflicts but their leaders were finally forced to sit down together and negotiate.

A resolution of the Kurdish issue in Turkey would improve and strengthen economic and commercial ties between the Turks and the Kurdistan region. It is fortunate that there are those who now speak of resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey whereas they had previously refused even to acknowledge Kurds existence and the Kurdish language. One such is General Kenan Everin, an ex-president of the Republic who took power by coup d'etat in 1980, and who now speaks even of the de-centralisation of Turkey.

Regrettably, the attitude of all previous Turkish governments was against the recognition of the Kurdish language anywhere in the world. As far back as 1958 an hour-long, non-political program of news and songs in Kurdish broadcast by Cairo radio provoked a protest from the Turkish government of that time: the Turkish requested that the program to be withdrawn on the grounds that it threatened the security of the Turkish state. "Are there any Kurds in Turkey who make this broadcast dangerous?" Nasser asked the Turkish ambassador.

It is time to resolve the Kurdish issue in Turkey by dialogue. Such a dialogue would be in the interest of both sides and the Kurds have for long been calling for it.

The view expressed by Massignon 50 years ago that co-operation between these two nations still holds true today. Co-operative relations would increase security in the region and improve the living standards of the populations of Kurdistan and Turkey. My hope is that Turkish intellectuals will follow the example of the Director of Turkish Security who, in an interview with a Turkish journalist at the beginning of 2007, questioned why the armed Kurds in the mountains do not come down and sit at the negotiating table.

It is time to end the bloodshed and hostility which has cost the lives of so many innocent people. Resolving the Kurdish issue in Turkey would also ease Turkey's entry into the EU and we, in this part of Kurdistan, would be delighted to share a border with a member of the EU. It would encourage respect for the principles of democracy and human rights by the leaders of this part of Kurdistan and bring these two great nations closer.

Recently there has been an important development in the region. In July 2007, the Turkish General Election gave the Party of the Prime Minister, Mr Erdugan, a large majority of 47 per cent. This will allow the President of the Republic to be elected from his Party and to make important amendments to the Turkish Constitution which will ease Turkey's passage into the EU.

It will also facilitate dialogue with the Kurdish group now in parliament and help towards resolving the Kurdish issue which has now been denied for more than 80 years. It will encourage the PKK to return to Turkey and to participate in the political process.

Resolving the Turkish issue in Turkey will resolve all the other problems with the Kurdistan Regional Government and lead to closer and stronger economic and commercial ties. It will also increase security and stability in this important region of the Middle East.