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| A man walks through the aftermath of a car bombing at a car dealership in Kirkuk, Iraq, on Monday Jan. 29, 2007. Six people were killed and 19 were wounded. A second car bomb exploded at a popular restaurant just half an hour later, killing five and injuring 15, police said. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed) |
Kirkuk: The Next Flashpoint?
By Beth Anne Rotatori
Iraq’s northern Kurdistan Region, home to roughly five million Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, is an oasis of calm compared with the civil conflict tearing apart the rest of the country. But some experts on the region warn that rising tensions could explode into violent clashes when a referendum on the future of Kirkuk province is held later this year.
At the heart of the controversy is the vast oil wealth below Kirkuk’s hilly terrain. Kirkuk city and the surrounding areas that make up the province sit atop one of the ten largest oil fields in the world, with reserves of nearly 9 million barrels – about 40 percent of Iraq’s entire supply.
That huge oil reserve – and deeply rooted historical and cultural ties to the land – has the region’s three main ethnic groups clamoring for control of Kirkuk.
The contested area falls just outside the borders of the Kurdistan Region and is home to a multi-ethnic population whose numbers are also contested. Thousands of Kurds were forced out of Kirkuk under former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. After Saddam’s fall, large numbers of Kurds began returning to the area, and Kurds are now believed to account for about half of the city’s estimated 600,000 residents, who will be voting in the upcoming referendum. Turkmen make up about a third of the population, while Arabs make up the rest.
The Kurds want Kirkuk united with the Kurdistan Region, a move strongly supported by its ruling body, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), but bitterly opposed by Kirkuk’s Arabs and Turkmen. They want Kirkuk ruled by Iraq’s federal government.
The Iraqi constitution of 2005 calls for the question of Kirkuk’s political status to be settled by referendum no later than December 2007. If the election is held as planned, it’s widely believed the Kurdish majority will win the vote, allowing the KRG to annex Kirkuk.
“That could lead to a major outbreak of violence,” says Joost Hiltermann, Middle East Project Director at the International Crisis Group, a non-profit organization that deals with conflict prevention. “You could have a civil war scenario develop in Kirkuk.”
Awarding Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Region could incite the Turkmen and Arabs to launch attacks throughout the Kurdistan Region, say foreign policy experts. But the alternative, postponing the referendum, as Turkey and the Iraq Study Group in the U.S. have called for, could also lead to clashes.
“The threat of conflict is absolutely real, but it’s not going to be solved by postponing the election,” says Brendan O’Leary, an expert in ethnic political conflict who served as a constitutional advisor to the KRG. “You’re just as likely to get that response from angry Kurds if the referendum is not held.”
Indeed, sporadic violence is already breaking out. A handful of suicide, roadside and car bombings have killed dozens in Kirkuk since the beginning of the year alone. If the violence expands, experts say, it could further destabilize the already fragile country.
“Kirkuk is a microcosm of Iraq,” says Omer Taspinar, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “If Kirkuk experiences ethnic tension, ethnic warfare, the chances for an overall breakup of Iraq will be much stronger.”
Bloodshed in the north could even spill beyond Iraq’s borders, say some experts, drawing Iraq’s neighbors into the conflict.
Experts say a worst case scenario would involve Turkey entering the fray with military strikes on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the Kurdish separatist group that has been attacking Turkey from northern Iraq since 2004.
Turkey threatened to conduct cross-border military operations last summer if the Iraqi Kurds didn’t contain the PKK. It also threatened to attack in 2003 if the Kurdistan Region attempted to annex Kirkuk. Conflict has been avoided so far, but the threats continue, fueled by Turkey’s longstanding fear of the creation of an independent Kurdistan. Turkey could stand to lose an estimated 15 million people and a quarter of its land if the country’s Kurds broke away.
It’s no secret the ethnic Kurds – whose population is scattered across Iraq, Turkey and other neighboring states – desire an independent homeland with Kirkuk as their capital. But foreign policy analysts say the creation of a sovereign, separate Kurdish state is not something that will happen any time soon.
“If you ask any Kurd if they would like to be independent, they will say yes. Many say they would like that to happen tomorrow,” says O’Leary. “If you ask if they’d like it even if it meant invasion by Turkey or Iran, then they’ll qualify their position.”
The Kurds have enjoyed de facto independence in northern Iraq since the U.S. established a no-fly zone over the region in 1991 at the end of the Persian Gulf War. The passage of the Iraqi constitution in 2005 formalized Iraqi Kurdistan’s status as an autonomous region under Baghdad’s federal umbrella, with the power to make its own laws and provide its own security.
Some experts say the current Kurdish leadership is pragmatic, and recognizes that separation from the Iraqi federal framework now would lead to further regional destabilization and leave the Kurds surrounded by neighbors opposed to their state’s existence.
That doesn’t calm the fears of neighboring states such as Turkey, Iran and Syria, all of which have sizeable populations of ethnic Kurds. They believe that the KRG’s annexation of Kirkuk would inflame Kurdish nationalist sentiment throughout the region, even if the Kurdistan Region remained nominally a part of Iraq.
Both Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds are close allies of the U.S. and both have asked for American assistance in dealing with the issues of Kirkuk and the PKK. The U.S. asserts that the Iraqi constitution should be upheld and the Kirkuk referendum carried out as planned.
The U.S. also urges a diplomatic resolution of the PKK problem. In August 2006, President George W. Bush appointed a special envoy, Ret. Air Force General Joseph Ralston, to hold talks with Turkish, Iraqi and KRG leaders geared toward reaching a peaceful solution.
The KRG is also asking the U.S. to supply forces to provide protection should the rest of Iraq disintegrate around it – or should one of its neighbors attack. The U.S. has not issued any official response to that request.
While the U.S. could do more to facilitate stability in the region, say some experts, the power to prevent a spiral toward violence lies mostly with the Kurdish Regional Government.
The Kurds must compromise on the Kirkuk question, they say. Whether that means delaying the referendum or incorporating Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Region under an arrangement to share power and oil revenues among its ethnic groups is up for debate. But experts say the Kurds need to be willing to negotiate such points.
“That’s the only way forward to avoid civil war,” says Hiltermann. “If the Kurds are not prepared do that, civil war is inevitable." |
