Turkey keeps nervous eye on
Kirkuk By Sumedha Senanayake
Turkish officials have recently voiced
their concerns over the fate of the oil-rich Iraqi
province of Kirkuk. Turkey fears that if Iraqi
Kurds annex Kirkuk into their autonomous region,
they will eventually want to carve out an
independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq and
thus stoke separatist desires in Turkey's own
sizable Kurdish population.
Article 140 of
the Iraqi constitution calls for a three-step
process to be implemented to reverse the
"Arabization" policies of the regime of former
president Saddam Hussein to expel and/or
displace non-Arabs
in the area around Kirkuk. The article
also stipulates that once the province has been
"normalized", a census is to take place, followed by
a referendum, which is to be carried out some time this year to
determine whether the city and its environs will
join the Kurdish region.
Kirkuk
conference raises tensions On January 16,
a two-day symposium titled "Kirkuk 2007",
sponsored by the Turkish Global Strategy
Institute, ended in the Turkish capital Ankara
with a final declaration calling for "the
suspension of the referendum until the Iraqi
constitution is reviewed", the Ankara Anatolia
news agency reported.
The aim of the
symposium was to discuss the future of Kirkuk with
the participation of Iraqi Sunni, Shi'ite,
Turkoman, Christian and Assyrian groups. However,
no representatives of Iraqi Kurdish groups were
invited; the conference's organizers said the
Kurds were asked to submit their views in writing.
Iraq's Turkomans, who are ethnic Turks,
have voiced fears that tensions will spill over if
the Kurds take control of Kirkuk. The leader of
the Iraqi Turkoman Front, Sadettin Ergec, said at
the conference that due to the complex ethnic and
religious makeup of Kirkuk, the referendum should
be canceled and the province placed under the
control of the federal government, Ankara Anatolia
reported.
"Kirkuk is not a normal
province. Rather, it is Iraq's national asset.
Therefore, all the Iraqis should have a say in its
future and the city," Ergec said.
In
response to the conference, several Kurdish
lawmakers in the Iraqi parliament issued a joint
statement denouncing the conference, The New
Anatolian reported on January 17. "We condemn this
interference in Iraqi affairs by the Turkish
government [and] ... call upon the Iraqi
government and Foreign Ministry to take a decisive
stance to stop this interference, and to threaten
to cut political and economic relations with
Turkey should Turkey continue its interference,"
the statement read.
Threat of military
intervention The confrontational rhetoric
from Turkish officials has been amplified in
recent weeks as the Kirkuk referendum approaches.
During a session of parliament on January 15,
Turhan Comez, a leading member of Turkey's ruling
Justice and Development Party (AKP), warned that
the Kirkuk referendum may lead to ethnic clashes
in the city, which could force Ankara to
intervene, The New Anatolian reported.
"Turkey should announce that it will not
recognize the results of a referendum on the
future of Kirkuk under these conditions. And we
should also announce that we are going to
intervene if civil war erupts in Kirkuk," Comez
said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan said on January 9, "Turkey cannot stand
idly by, watching the efforts to change the
demographic structure of Kirkuk," the Cihan news
agency reported. Erdogan's statement reflects a
longstanding accusation by Turkey that Iraq's
Kurds have been drastically altering the
demographics of Kirkuk in an attempt to influence
the outcome of the upcoming referendum in their
favor.
Indeed, The New Anatolian reported
on January 15 that Turkey's National Intelligence
Organization had obtained information that since
2003 "an estimated 600,000 ethnic Kurdish Iraqi
citizens have been moved to Kirkuk from different
areas in northern Iraq and have subsequently been
registered to vote in elections".
Moreover, the Turkish daily Ortadogu
reported on January 17 that 240,000 Turkish troops
deployed last March along the Iranian and Iraqi
borders were awaiting orders to enter northern
Iraq to go after Kurdish Workers' Party fighters
and to protect the Iraqi Turkoman population.
Crossing the border It
is unclear whether Turkey will go so far as
sending troops into northern Iraq if the Kurds
continue with their drive to annex Kirkuk. Both the
ruling AKP and the main opposition Republican
People's Party (CHP) have on separate occasions asked for
a closed-door session of parliament to discuss
the Kirkuk situation. The session was to take place
this Tuesday.
CHP leader Deniz Baykal
indicated that an order to send troops to northern
Iraq will be issued if the situation "warranted"
it, Milliyet reported.
Iraqi Kurdish regional parliament Speaker Adnan Mufti
on Friday denounced the upcoming session, calling it an
attempt by Turkey to cause chaos in Iraq, Salah
al-Din Kurdistan Satellite television reported.
"I believe that the [Turkish] Parliament's
session is unnecessary. Now, since the session has
become a fact, I hope that they will discuss the
realities," he said.
US Under
Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas
Burns moved to clarify the situation when he
stressed on Thursday after a meeting with Erdogan that the
issue of Kirkuk was a matter for the "Iraqis,
since they are sovereign in their country".
However, as the referendum nears, tensions are
bound to increase and Turkey will continue to
watch northern Iraq anxiously.
Copyright (c) 2007,
RFE/RL Inc. Reprinted with the permission of
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