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Meeting in Kirkuk to reject elections
postponement
25.6.2008
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June
25, 2008
Kirkuk, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region,
— A meeting of chieftains, Arab and Turcoman blocs
were held on Wednesday in the house of the head of
al-Multaqa district in western Kirkuk to reject the
postponement of the elections in the province, the
head of the district said.
"The meeting will discuss also the power sharing in
Kirkuk; 32% for Arab, Kurdish and Turcomans and 4%
for Chaldeans and Assyrians," Abdul Karim Nasief
told VOI.
As Iraq's provincial elections law are underway,www.ekurd.net
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.
The head of the parliamentary provinces committee
linked organizing the provincial elections next
October to the improved security situation in Iraq.
According to the Iraqi constitution, the provincial
elections should have been held immediately after
the parliament elections in December 2005, but it
was delayed for more than two years.
The Iraqi government is counting on the provincial
councils law that will specify the rules of electing
governors and provincial councils' members, as one
of the measures that should contribute to minimizing
violence, by attracting different armed groups to
participate in the political process.
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, to June 2008.
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.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, VOI |
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