Bad tidings in Iraqi Kurdistan
By Mohammed A Salih
COLUMBIA, Missouri - Tensions between Iraqi Kurds and the government are on the
rise, raising fears of ethnic clashes just as the country begins to recover
from years of sectarian violence between Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs.
The Iraqi army last month deployed units to areas under Kurdish control in the
volatile northern Diyala province, as part of its "Operation Good Tidings",
which has been launched to expand government authority over the area.
The centerpiece of the controversial move was Khanaqin, 140 kilometers
northeast of Baghdad, a small, largely Kurdish town that has oil reserves and
is close to the Iranian border. Kurdish security forces, known as the
Peshmarga, left their bases in the nearby districts of Jalawla, Saadiya and
Qara Tapa in northern
Diyala after receiving warnings from the Iraqi army.
In a hasty face-saving move, Iraqi and Kurdish officials tentatively agreed
that neither Peshmarga nor Iraqi troops would go to the town. But to the Kurds'
advantage, the predominantly Kurdish police force was told it could remain in
charge of security.
Kurds see the deployment as a test of their power and believe if they withdraw
from Khanaqin, the Iraqi army will chase them out of other strategic, and
contested, locations in and around the oil-rich Kirkuk and Mosul in northern
Iraq.
"The current problem is over borders, because they [the Iraqi government]
believe the borders of [autonomous] Kurdistan should be where the former ousted
regime [of president Saddam Hussein] were," said Massoud Barzani, president of
Iraq's northern Kurdistan region, in a meeting with Kurdish journalists on
September 28.
"From now on, if Iraq sends its forces to somewhere in disputed areas, then we
will dispatch our forces to the same spot as well. If they send one brigade, we
will send two," Barzani said.
His remarks racheted the current tensions to a new level, signaling Kurds will
not shy from fighting the army of the very government which is run by a Kurdish
president, as well as containing some key Kurdish ministers.
Last month, Sheikh Homam al-Hamudi, a Shi'ite Arab who heads the Iraqi
parliament's foreign relations committee, warned Kurds on behalf of Prime
Minister Nuri al-Maliki that "any [Kurdish] Peshmarga who violates the blue
line will be chased out by the [Iraqi] security forces".
The blue line refers to the official border between areas under Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) jurisdiction and the rest of Iraq. KRG runs the three
northern provinces of Arbil, Sulaimaniya and Dohuk and has no official
jurisdiction over Khanaqin, Kirkuk and Nineveh province, home to the city of
Mosul.
In the wake of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kurds gained unprecedented
power and recognition in the country's politics and their relations with
Baghdad went through an exceptional period of apparent friendship.
Kurds consider Khanaqin, Kirkuk and towns around Mosul part of their historic
homeland. Under Saddam, tens of thousands of Kurds were expelled from those
areas and replaced by Arab settlers from the central and southern parts of the
country. Now Arabs charge Kurds with a tit-for-tat "ethnic cleansing" campaign,
as ownership disputes between Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans - people of Turkish
origin - turn the areas into potentially explosive flashpoints.
The recent developments marked the advent of a new era in Iraq's post-war
politics and a sign, as Kurdish media sometimes say, that the "honeymoon"
between Kurds and the Iraqi government is over.
For the first time, the Shi'ite-led government of Maliki is militarily
challenging Kurds who are partners in his coalition government. Since the
overthrow of Saddam, Shi'ites and Kurds have given the appearance of a
political alliance. When several Shi'ite, Sunni and secular groups withdrew
from Maliki's government in 2006, it was Kurds who propped up his cabinet by
staying and backing him.
But as the security situation has improved over the past year, Maliki's
confidence appears to have grown in parallel. That has meant he now finds
himself in a position to take on old friends, in maneuvers typical of Iraqi
politics, which is notorious for short-lived and often self-serving political
alliances.
The recent moves by the Iraqi army sent shockwaves among Kurds, reviving images
of the bitter history of their relations with various central governments in
Baghdad. Kurds have been at war with virtually all governments since the
establishment of Iraq in 1921 up to 2003.
The worst experience was with Saddam, who in the 1980s conducted large-scale
massacres of Kurds, killing tens of thousands. In April, the Iraqi parliament
unanimously recognized those massacres as "genocide".
"I think, unfortunately, this was an alarm bell as far as we are concerned ...
Baghdad again followed the practice that when it is weak, it keeps silent
toward us, but as soon as it gets powerful, starts to threaten us," Nechirvan
Barzani, prime minister of the KRG and Massoud's nephew, told Voice of America
last week. "We thought in the new Iraq, an Iraq that is rebuilt on a new basis,
this issue is over."
In response to what many Iraqi Arabs see as Kurdish encroachment on the
authority and powers of the central government, Maliki issued a clear warning,
saying that Iraq needed a "strong central government".
"We do not want the central government, as some think, to become just a process
of collecting and producing wealth," the London-based pan-Arab daily al-Hayat
quoted Maliki as saying in mid-September.
Distrust between the two sides runs so deep that recently, as the news broke of
Iraq's plans to buy advanced military equipment like F-16 jets from the United
States, the speaker of the Kurdish parliament, Adnan Mufti, said the US should
insist on guarantees from the Iraqi government that it would not use those
weapons against the civilian population, as in the past.
Saddam frequently used the army to crush his political opponents, notably
Shi'ites and Kurds.
Arab parties charge that Kurds are getting a disproportionate share of the
Iraqi budget - 17% - and that they are over-represented in federal government
institutions in Baghdad.
Observers believe the Kurds' position in Iraqi politics is weakening as
sectarian Shi'ite-Sunni violence has decreased and Arabs of both sects act more
in unison on some key issues, especially those related to Kurds. Pressures from
regional powers, especially Turkey, have also had an impact in undermining
Kurdish influence in Iraq.
In February, when the Turkish army launched an incursion into the remote
mountainous areas of Iraqi Kurdistan in search of Kurdish guerillas, the Iraqi
government merely issued a few statements. And as the US seeks to stabilize
Iraq, it is pressuring Kurds to make concessions to Shi'ite and Sunni Arabs.
All this means Kurdish leaders face tough times, especially as major disputes
between Baghdad and the KRG over oil, territory and budgets remain unsettled.
Given the potential dangerous course that events in this regard may take, what
has happened so far could be the calm before the real storm.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
