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Opposition in Baghdad among Kurdish, Shiite parties to Iraq Study Group
The findings of the US Iraq Study Group headed by Republican powerbroker James Baker have been rejected out of hand by the Kurdish nationalist parties and the Shiite fundamentalist Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). The most strident criticisms came from Iraqi President and prominent Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, who denounced the ISG report as “unjust and unfair”, “dangerous”, “an insult to the Iraqi people” and “dead in the water”.
The Kurdish groups were among the most ardent supporters of the US invasion, viewing it as the means of transforming Iraq’s predominantly Kurdish northern provinces into a de-facto independent state. Under the new Iraqi constitution imposed under US occupation, the north was placed under the jurisdiction of a Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).
The constitution granted the KRG complete authority over all new oil production in the region. As well, it stipulated that a referendum take place by December 2007 to determine whether the inhabitants of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk wished to join the KRG.
The incorporation of Kirkuk would give the KRG authority over as much as 40 percent of Iraq’s oil reserves. In the lead-up to the referendum, there have been a series of accusations that Kurdish militiamen are using threats and violence to pressure ethnic Arabs and Turkomen to leave Kirkuk in order to create an overwhelmingly majority Kurdish population.
Like the Kurds, the Shiite establishment largely supported the US invasion as a means to supplant the traditional Sunni Arab establishment that had held power in Iraq since the country’s formation in 1920. Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party rested on the Sunni propertied and tribal elite. Shiite parties have dominated each of the puppet governments formed under US occupation. Most units in the new army, interior ministry and police are made up of Shiites, giving their participation in US operations against Sunni Arab insurgents the character of a sectarian conflict.
SCIRI, one of the most powerful Shiite factions, has aggressively supported the federalist constitution and declared its intention to form a Shiite regional government encompassing nine southern provinces of Iraq. Under the US-backed constitution, the bulk of oil revenues would flow into the pockets of such a regional identity, as 60 percent of the country’s reserves are located within its proposed borders.
The ISG report cuts directly across the ambitions of the Kurdish and Shiite parties. In the face of a society collapsing into a Shiite-Sunni civil war, an entrenched Sunni insurgency against American troops, rising tensions throughout the Middle East and tremendous domestic opposition in the US, the ISG advocated a new political strategy. It called for overtures to the former Sunni ruling elite and regional talks aimed at re-establishing a strong central Iraqi government to assist US forces to impose “stability”.
Baker specifically recommended the rewriting of the constitution to oppose regional control over oil revenues and recommended that the Kirkuk referendum be indefinitely delayed. Moreover, the ISG called for the future of Kirkuk to be discussed by an “International Iraq Support Group,” including Turkey, Syria and Iran—all states that repress their own substantial Kurdish minorities and bitterly oppose the emergence of a de-facto Kurdish state on their borders. The ISG also recommended a substantial reversal of the de-Baathification policy used by the US occupation and its Shiite and Kurdish backers to marginalise the Sunni elite.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/isgi-d13.shtml
The constitution granted the KRG complete authority over all new oil production in the region. As well, it stipulated that a referendum take place by December 2007 to determine whether the inhabitants of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk wished to join the KRG.
The incorporation of Kirkuk would give the KRG authority over as much as 40 percent of Iraq’s oil reserves. In the lead-up to the referendum, there have been a series of accusations that Kurdish militiamen are using threats and violence to pressure ethnic Arabs and Turkomen to leave Kirkuk in order to create an overwhelmingly majority Kurdish population.
Like the Kurds, the Shiite establishment largely supported the US invasion as a means to supplant the traditional Sunni Arab establishment that had held power in Iraq since the country’s formation in 1920. Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party rested on the Sunni propertied and tribal elite. Shiite parties have dominated each of the puppet governments formed under US occupation. Most units in the new army, interior ministry and police are made up of Shiites, giving their participation in US operations against Sunni Arab insurgents the character of a sectarian conflict.
SCIRI, one of the most powerful Shiite factions, has aggressively supported the federalist constitution and declared its intention to form a Shiite regional government encompassing nine southern provinces of Iraq. Under the US-backed constitution, the bulk of oil revenues would flow into the pockets of such a regional identity, as 60 percent of the country’s reserves are located within its proposed borders.
The ISG report cuts directly across the ambitions of the Kurdish and Shiite parties. In the face of a society collapsing into a Shiite-Sunni civil war, an entrenched Sunni insurgency against American troops, rising tensions throughout the Middle East and tremendous domestic opposition in the US, the ISG advocated a new political strategy. It called for overtures to the former Sunni ruling elite and regional talks aimed at re-establishing a strong central Iraqi government to assist US forces to impose “stability”.
Baker specifically recommended the rewriting of the constitution to oppose regional control over oil revenues and recommended that the Kirkuk referendum be indefinitely delayed. Moreover, the ISG called for the future of Kirkuk to be discussed by an “International Iraq Support Group,” including Turkey, Syria and Iran—all states that repress their own substantial Kurdish minorities and bitterly oppose the emergence of a de-facto Kurdish state on their borders. The ISG also recommended a substantial reversal of the de-Baathification policy used by the US occupation and its Shiite and Kurdish backers to marginalise the Sunni elite.
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/isgi-d13.shtml
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Some people should get their facts right before they set out to write an article about a sensitive issue. Perhaps some people don't want to get their facts right, because they are out to mislead, not to inform.
For example this proposition that "In the lead-up to the referendum, there have been a series of accusations that Kurdish militiamen are using threats and violence to pressure ethnic Arabs and Turkomen to leave Kirkuk in order to create an overwhelmingly majority Kurdish population" is so wrong, it must be corrected for sake of fairness.
1- The Kurds are not changing demographics of any territory as it is implied. All the Kurds want is to return home those Kurds who were ethnically cleansed from Kirkuk by Saddam Hussein. Currently they live in miserable conditions around the city of Kerkuk while "ten-thousand-dinar-arabs" are still occupying the ethnically cleansed Kurds' home. Those Arabs who were moved to Kerkuk and given free Kurdish properties by Saddam in order to tilt the demographic balance must be repatriated.
2- Kerkuk's ethnically cleansed Kurds, who are now returning to the city are fully entitled to vote on the future of Kerkuk, much more so than an Arabisation Arab who is occupying those Kurds' homes.
3- The Kurds have been extremely patient and magnanimous with the Kerkuk issue. Had they used force and intimidation to get rid of the arabisation Arabs -an option still not exercised- there wouldn't be a single one of them in Kerkuk by now. Yes some individual Kurds have been impatient and taken back their homes by force. this the Human Rights Watch have reported. But HRW also praised the Kurdish authorities for preventing mass, potentially bloody, re-possession of Kurdish properties in Kerkuk. Also, as HRW notes, the Kurds want only the Arabisation Arabs out of Kerkuk. Native Kerkuki Arabs have nothing to fear.
4- No turkmen have ever been asked to leave their home in Kerkuk by any Kurd. Never happened and this an outright lie. The last time that a turkmen was forced to leave his home was before 2003. And they took refuge in liberated Kurdistan. They too want to go back to their homes in Kerkuk and, make no mistake, the Kurdish authorities are doing their best so that both Kurds and Turkmen ethnically cleansed by Saddam can go back to their city.
For example this proposition that "In the lead-up to the referendum, there have been a series of accusations that Kurdish militiamen are using threats and violence to pressure ethnic Arabs and Turkomen to leave Kirkuk in order to create an overwhelmingly majority Kurdish population" is so wrong, it must be corrected for sake of fairness.
1- The Kurds are not changing demographics of any territory as it is implied. All the Kurds want is to return home those Kurds who were ethnically cleansed from Kirkuk by Saddam Hussein. Currently they live in miserable conditions around the city of Kerkuk while "ten-thousand-dinar-arabs" are still occupying the ethnically cleansed Kurds' home. Those Arabs who were moved to Kerkuk and given free Kurdish properties by Saddam in order to tilt the demographic balance must be repatriated.
2- Kerkuk's ethnically cleansed Kurds, who are now returning to the city are fully entitled to vote on the future of Kerkuk, much more so than an Arabisation Arab who is occupying those Kurds' homes.
3- The Kurds have been extremely patient and magnanimous with the Kerkuk issue. Had they used force and intimidation to get rid of the arabisation Arabs -an option still not exercised- there wouldn't be a single one of them in Kerkuk by now. Yes some individual Kurds have been impatient and taken back their homes by force. this the Human Rights Watch have reported. But HRW also praised the Kurdish authorities for preventing mass, potentially bloody, re-possession of Kurdish properties in Kerkuk. Also, as HRW notes, the Kurds want only the Arabisation Arabs out of Kerkuk. Native Kerkuki Arabs have nothing to fear.
4- No turkmen have ever been asked to leave their home in Kerkuk by any Kurd. Never happened and this an outright lie. The last time that a turkmen was forced to leave his home was before 2003. And they took refuge in liberated Kurdistan. They too want to go back to their homes in Kerkuk and, make no mistake, the Kurdish authorities are doing their best so that both Kurds and Turkmen ethnically cleansed by Saddam can go back to their city.
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