The argument in Iraq over the status of Kirkuk - currently focused on how the planned provincial elections should be run - is only one element of the single biggest problem that the country now faces, which is how to merge the Kurdish regions back into a federal state, and even finding out if that is still possible.
Most of Iraq's political action in the past three years has focused on how the 45 per cent of Iraq's population who are Shiite will find a way to get along with the 30 per cent who are Sunni.
The fighting and the political dialogue between the many elements of Shiites (some in favour of a more Iraqi national outcome, and some in favour of closer links to Iran) and various Sunni groups (some more tribal and some more national) have all been part of the struggle to build a new political identity in Iraq.
The Kurds have held aloof from all this. They achieved effective independence in 1992, when the Western forces enforced a no-fly zone on Saddam Hussain's forces after the liberation of Kuwait, and Saddam withdrew his government officials from what then became Kurdistan.
Importantly for what is happening today, the no-fly zone ran a few miles north of Kirkuk, which allowed Saddam to 'Arabise' the city by encouraging Arabs to move in and settle, tipping the population towards an Arab majority.
The Kurds have been vigorously reversing this trend since Saddam's fall, getting more and more Kurds to go and live in Kirkuk.
Bitter civil war
The Kurds achieved internal political stability after a bitter civil war in 1994 and 1995, which left Masoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, (KDP) in control of Irbil and northwest Kurdistan; and Jalal Talabani (now President of Iraq) with his Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in charge of Suleimaniyah.
Successful government in the two areas gave the Kurdish population a calm and prosperous life, very different from the misery and chaos that the rest of Iraq had to endure under Saddam, and the chaos of the aftermath of his toppling.
Till today, both parties have solid support among the Kurds. Importantly, they have also maintained their militias, the peshmerga, which are some of the most effective armed forces in Iraq.
Moreover, they owe nothing to the central government and everything to their Kurdish leaders. This all means that the Kurds have a lot to lose by joining in what is happening in the rest of Iraq, and nor do they see much to gain.
This lack of interest is what the Iraqi central government will have to deal with in some way, or face a serious collapse of its national plans. Most of Iraq would benefit hugely from the planned elections in the 18 provinces.
They would allow local regional government to operate more effectively through a popular mandate, and would also allow regional leaders to emerge and take their formal place in public life.
The proposed Provincial Election Law was proceeding on its way, but the Kurds saw it as an attack on their interests. Not so much as on what was happening in their home territories of Irbil and Suleimaniyah, but in their struggle to gain acknowledged control of Kirkuk, and its province of Tamim.
The city of Kirkuk suffers from having twin identities as both the historic and spiritual capital of the Kurdish region, but also as the centre of Iraq's oil industry. It is impossible for the Kurds not to insist that Kirkuk is recognised as Kurdish, but it is also impossible for the Iraqi government to grant control over its oil reserves to the Kurds.
The clumsy solution the government tried to achieve in Article 24 of the proposed Provincial Election Law, required that the membership of the Tamim assembly should be split three ways equally between Kurds, Turkmens and Arabs. This outraged the Kurds, who are certainly the largest group in today's Kirkuk, if not the majority.
The solution is for the Iraqi central government to tackle the stalled problem of the law governing control of the nation's oil reserves, which should reduce any provincial rights and have the strategy and control of the nation's oil revert to the central government.
While the central government should assert its authority over the oil, it should also be prepared to implement provincial elections based on the demographics of the regions, and accept the result.
The issue of how to ensure representation of the minorities in the assemblies can be solved by using the list-based system of proportional representation voting that Iraq's national elections used in 2005.
Minorities should not have to rely on very clumsy central government edicts, dictating that each group gets a third each, regardless of population.
Elections based on proportional representation also mean that any minority need not just be ethnic or religious groups. In time, and in a more hopeful future, minorities seeking support from the popular vote could include minority political parties or social action groups.
Anything that Iraq builds at the moment, should allow for the introduction of less ethnically driven politics, and should let an active civil society emerge.
Your comments
The Kirkuk issue is a great challenge for the Iraqi government. Consecutive Iraqi regimes have been marginalised. Kurds were forced to leave their homes in Kirkuk and were turned into refugees and replaced by Arabs. So, Kurds saw nothing from Iraq except misery. They paid a very high price for being part of Iraq, the destruction of 5000 villages, 200,000 civilians killed during Anfal campaign and as many as 1 million people turned into refugees. Kurkuk has a Kurdish majority even after many years of Arabisation. It is time for the Iraqi regime to accept this and turn a new leaf. Kurds are a majority in Kirkuk therefore they must have a louder voice as Shiites have in Baghdad. If Kurds are forced to share Kirkuk with others, the Shiite government in Baghdad should also divide the posts equally in Baghdad between various ethnic groups.
dario
London,UK
Posted: August 14, 2008, 09:45
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