The Kirkuk Issue.

A long-awaited UN report presented on April 22 to senior Iraqi officials proposes several options for Kirkuk Province, including making it an autonomous region as a way to defuse simmering tensions between Kurds and Arabs over its oil wealth. The tensions are quickly degenerating into violence.

The US military has long been concerned that the dispute over control of Kirkuk and its resources could plunge Iraq into a serious war, drawing neighbouring Turkey and Iran into the conflict as well.

The UN did not release the complete 500-page document, providing instead only general details about the report. Among them are four proposed options for Kirkuk, each of which would require political accommodation among the groups competing for power: Kurds, Turkomans and Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs. Each of the proposals envisions keeping the province as a single entity, and each calls for Kirkuk residents to make the final decision as part of a referendum. The report, delayed since 2008, was presented to PM Maleki and other officials both in Baghdad and Kurdistan's capital Erbil.

Kurdistan President Mas'oud Barzani and other Kurds have said that Kirkuk, believed to have a Kurdish majority, should be incorporated into the KRG territory, which has operated as an autonomous region since 1991. This is opposed strongly by both the Ankara-backed Kurkomans and the Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs.

Reportedly, one of the four proposed options is the creation of an independent or autonomous region run by Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans. Accordingly, the budget of the region would be financed with a percentage of Kirkuk's oil revenues.

A second option is for Kirkuk to become a special region, to be jointly administered by the KRG and the central government. Under this proposal, a referendum would be held within five years to determine whether residents want Kirkuk to become part of the KRG territory or to be incorporated into the central state.

Kirkuk was excluded from Iraq's provincial elections held on Jan. 31, 2009, to avoid inflaming tensions. A proposed referendum by end-2007 had been postponed repeatedly for the same reasons (see the background in rim4IrqAutonomyApr27-09).

There is broad understanding between Ankara and Baghdad that the future of Kirkuk will not be decided without Turkish approval. From Ankara's standpoint, no matter what arguments KRG leaders have over the fate of this vital and oil-rich region, there is nothing the Kurds would be able to do with Kirkuk within prior Turkish consent.

This is mainly because Kurdistan, like the rest of northern Iraq, is a landlocked region with the only viable outlets for it are Turkey to the north, Syria to the west and Iran to the east - apart from the rest of Iraq to the south. But the important outlet for Kirkuk and Kurdistan is Turkey. Kirkuk's crude oil exports are tied to a pipeline system to Turkey's Mediterranean terminal of Ceyhan.

Print Get the Mag Weekly Updates