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Iraqi parliament speaker proposes solution
for Kirkuk's controversial elections
23.6.2008
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June
23, 2008
BAGHDAD, — Iraqi deputy parliament speaker on
Sunday said he proposed a solution to resolve the
stalemate dogging Kirkuk's provincial elections.
Khalid al-Attayah, the deputy parliament speaker,
noted he "tabled a proposal to resolve the
controversial local elections in Kirkuk by reaching
a consensus between the three major ethnic groups:
Arabs, Kurds, and Turkomans."
As Iraq's provincial elections are underway, calls
have been raised to exclude Kirkuk from the
elections for several technical and political
reasons which led Kirkuk's parliamentarian crisis
cell to initiate a proposal signed by 110 lawmakers
calling to delay the provincial elections throughout
Iraq.
"A solution to the issue of Kirkuk's provincial
elections must be settled next week," Al-Attiya
asserted.
Last May, for the first time, Nechirvan Barzani,
prime minister of the Kurdistan region, explicitly
said that Kurds are ready to break a the lasting
stalemate, raising hopes the potential time bomb of
Iraq could be defused.
Barzani's remarks signalled the Kurds' willingness
to compromise over the oil-rich province after
longtime resistance to any settlement other than a
popular referendum. Due to the Kurds' numbers having
grown hugely in Kirkuk since the end of the 2003
war,www.ekurd.net
Kurdish insistence on a
referendum was interpreted by others as a desire to
take over the city.
Under the Iraqi Constitution, a referendum was to be
held in Kirkuk late last year in which people would
have voted on whether the province would join the
Kurdistan region, remain under Baghdad's
jurisdiction, or be given special status as an
independent region.
The referendum was not held, and the deadline was
extended for another six months. It expires at the
end of June, but it is highly unlikely to take place
this month due to tremendous opposition from various
Iraqi groups, neighboring countries and the U.S.
Instead, the United Nations' special envoy to Iraq,
Steffan de Mistura, has been tasked with seeking
other possible solutions.
While the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies conduct
operations to pacify the war-torn country, Kirkuk
has long been flashing in the background as a likely
point for the eruption of a civil war.
Kirkuk city is historically a Kurdish city
and it lies just south border of the Kurdistan
autonomous region, the population is a mix of
majority Kurds and minority of Arabs, Christians and
Turkmen. lies 250 km northeast of Baghdad. Kurds
have a strong cultural and emotional attachment to Kirkuk,
which they call "the Kurdish Jerusalem."
The article 140 in Iraqi constitution calls for conducting a census to be
followed by a referendum to let the inhabitants
decide whether they would like Kirkuk to be annexed
to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region or having
it as an independent province.
These stages were supposed to end on December 31,
2007, a deadline that was later extended to six
months.
The former regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein
had forced over 250,000 Kurdish residents to give up
their homes to Arabs in the 1970s, to "Arabize"
the city and the region's oil industry. Kirkuk, the
capital city of the oil-rich province of Kirkuk,
lies 250 km north of Baghdad.
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