Deal could defuse Kirkuk time bomb
By Mohammed A Salih
WASHINGTON - A possible breakthrough over the fate of the contentious Iraqi
province of Kirkuk appears to be underway, which could be a significant source
of relief for the United States as it is trying hard to stabilize the country.
On Tuesday, for the first time, a top Kurdish official explicitly said Kurds
are ready to break a stalemate that has been in place for years, if not
decades, raising hopes the potential time bomb of Iraq could be defused.
"In Kirkuk, as Kurds, we are ready for power-sharing," Nechirvan Barzani, prime
minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government, was quoted as saying by Reuters
news agency in Dubai in the
United Arab Emirates.
"We are pushing for a solution, not especially a referendum. We have asked the
UN to be technically involved because the situation is complicated," he said.
Barzani's remarks signal Kurds' new willingness to compromise over the oil-rich
province after longtime resistance to any settlement other than a popular
referendum. Because Kurds' numbers have grown hugely in Kirkuk since the end of
the 2003 war, Kurdish insistence on a referendum was interpreted by others as a
desire to take over the city.
"It seems to be good news because [Kurdish leaders Massoud] Barzani and [Iraqi
President Jalal] Talabani have been under tremendous pressure from their base
to pursue the maximum in various areas, including pieces of territory in Kirkuk
and beyond," said Wayne White, who worked as head of the US State Department's
Intelligence Team in Iraq from 2003 to 2005.
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 either due to tremendous opposition from various Iraqi groups,
neighboring countries and the US. Instead, the United Nations' special envoy to
Iraq, Steffan de Mistura, has been tasked with seeking other possible
solutions.
While the US 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.
"The US has been counseling restraint [on Kirkuk] because of the danger of
upsetting the apple cart of increased security successes," White said.
Kurdish leaders have been in a dilemma for a long time in which they have found
it extremely hard to make any major concession on Kirkuk, an issue with a
deeply emotional dimension in contemporary Kurdish history.
In 1975, the Kurds' autonomy arrangements with Baghdad broke up after Kurdish
leader Mulla Mustafa Barzani, grandfather of Nechirvan Barzani, refused to back
down on Kurdish claims to Kirkuk. That legacy has been very hard up to now for
any Kurdish leader to move away from.
Although a concession on Kirkuk could erode the popularity of the two major
Kurdish parties - the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan - among Iraq's Kurds and beyond, it could bring them some major gains
as well.
Any such deal could improve Kurds' ties with Turkey, which has been indirectly
threatening Kurds with military action if they take over Kirkuk. It could also
convince the Iraqi government to make serious concessions toward Kurds, for
instance, recognizing their controversial oil deals with foreign firms on which
Baghdad and Washington do not look favorably.
And it could improve the prospects of security for Kurdistan and establish
trust with the neighboring communities of Sunni Arabs, Turkomans and Shi'ites
in Iraq.
The softened stance by Kurdish leaders was welcomed by the city's Turkomans,
who have boycotted the Kirkuk provincial council for months. Like Kurds,
Turkomans claim ownership of Kirkuk and some of their major political parties
have been fiercely resisting an attachment of Kirkuk to the neighboring Kurdish
region.
"The Turkomans received Barzani's statements with great optimism," Akram Tarzi,
a Turkoman member of the Iraqi parliament from the bloc of young Shi'ite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr, told Voices of Iraq news agency. "The Turkoman leadership
realized that the Kirkuk cause will not be solved without understanding."
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