KIRKUK, Iraq - The latest wave of deadly
attacks to hit the oil-rich, ethnically
combustible city of Kirkuk appears to be a prelude
of worse to come, with a referendum looming to
decide its status by the end of the year. Concern
that the north is poised to become a new front in
the Iraq conflict is saddled by the possibility
that neighboring Turkey will also join the fight.
The fate of Kirkuk, which sits atop one of
the world's biggest oilfields, is set to be
resolved in a local referendum as laid out in
the
Iraqi constitution. After a forced "Arabization"
campaign under Saddam Hussein that brought tens of
thousands of Shi'ite Arabs to displace the Kurdish
population, an estimated 350,000 Kurds have moved
back since April 2003 and are now said to hold a
majority that would carry the vote.
The
Kurdish Regional Government already has de facto
control and wants to absorb the city into the
northern autonomous region, a prospect that has
given large Arab and Turkoman populations common
cause against the Kurds. Last month, a plan
endorsed by the Iraqi government to relocate these
groups "voluntarily" sparked a row in Baghdad that
led some officials to resign. Two days later, a
suicide truck bomber slammed into a police station
in a Kurdish neighborhood of Kirkuk, killing 15
and wounding more than 200 people. A March 16
attack left three more Iraqis dead.
Hostilities may extend outside of Iraq and
into Turkey, where officials worry that a
Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk would bring the Kurds
one vital step closer to an independent state that
could reignite separatist fervor among the 14
million Kurds living on its side of the border.
In response to a threat by Kurdish leader
Massoud Barzani that he would "interfere" with
Turkey's Kurds if Ankara continued "interfering"
in northern Iraq, the Turkish military threatened
a unilateral offensive into northern Iraq to rout
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) guerrillas known to
stage cross-border attacks. Turkey is now waging a
major assault against the PKK in its southeastern
mountains.
The Kurds have to date been the
United States' most reliable partner in Iraq's
fractious political landscape. But as tensions
mount, the US has opted to remain in the
background. Part of this stance can be explained
by its preoccupation with the last-ditch "surge"
of troops to secure al-Anbar province and Baghdad.
Another less-held view is that the US Department
of Defense is providing clandestine support to
Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK)
guerrillas based along the Iranian border, a proxy
force that has battled the Iranian Revolutionary
Guard on and off.
Either way, observers
warn that continued neglect by Washington could
spell ruin for the only successful facet of the
Iraq nation-building project.
"Preoccupied
with their attempt to save Iraq by implementing a
new security plan in Baghdad, the Bush
administration has left the looming Kirkuk crisis
to the side," said a new Crisis Group report. "If
the referendum is held later his year over the
objections of the other communities, the civil war
is very likely to spread to Kirkuk and the Kurdish
region, until now Iraq's only area of quiet and
progress."
Much as the Kurds feel entitled
to Kirkuk, there is a growing sentiment that even
if it is secured in a referendum, the backlash may
be too costly. Joost Hiltermann, the Crisis
Group's deputy Middle East director, calls the
referendum process "a train wreck", arguing that
Washington and the United Nations should intervene
and press for a postponement of the referendum
with one key proviso: an alternative face-saving
measure must be devised that avoids a political
crisis stemming from a possible Kurdish withdrawal
from the cabinet of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki.
Such a compromise would have to
include an oil-revenue-sharing law that allows for
the equitable distribution of billions in
petrodollars up for grabs. Kirkuk and its
surrounding area hold about 8% of Iraq's estimated
78 billion barrels of oil reserves, and the Kurds
have already inked production sharing agreements
with foreign oil companies to develop fields in
the region.
The current hydrocarbon law in
the constitution is vague on just how future
revenues should be allocated and whether existing
contracts made by Kurdish authorities should be
upheld; a clarification could allay Sunni Arab
fears of being cut out of profits by Kurds in the
north and Shi'ites in the south. A settlement may
yet arise "from a desire among Kurds to have
companies operate in their territory with the
confidence that a national law would impart",
according to Soner Cagaptay of the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy.
There are
still other incentives to consider. Muqtada
al-Sadr's Shi'ite Mehdi Army also has a
significant presence in Kirkuk and has reportedly
orchestrated attacks on Kurdish government
institutions. Hundreds of Mehdi fighters have
moved to the city over the past year, US officials
say, with 7,000-10,000 Shi'ite loyalists vowing to
join the fight against any Kurdish attempt to take
control.
Jason Motlagh is deputy
foreign editor at United Press International in
Washington, DC. He has reported freelance from
Saharan Africa, Asia and the Caribbean for various
US and European news media.
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