Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle over Kirkuk

Amman/Brussels  |   18 Jul 2006

The media release is also available in Turkish.

Unless the international community acts soon to resolve mounting tensions in Kirkuk, the result could well be yet another violent communal conflict in Iraq, risking full scale civil war and possibly outside military intervention.

Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle over Kirkuk,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the dangerously neglected looming conflict in and around the northern Iraqi city. The struggle is equal parts street brawl over oil riches; ethnic competition over identity between Kurdish, Turkoman, Arab and Assyrian-Chaldean communities; and titanic clash between two nations, Arab and Kurd.

“Notwithstanding all the other crises on decision-makers’ plates right now, the stakes here are too high for the international community to stand by, allowing yet another element in the Iraq equation to slip into chaos by default”, says Gareth Evans, Crisis Group President.

Since the 2003 ouster of Saddam Hussein, the Kurds have pressed for change in Kirkuk and other mixed-population areas in the north, which they claim as part of the Kurdish region and most of which are rich in oil. Using their new political strength in Baghdad, their leaders have helped design a constitutional framework that promises to reverse decades of Arabisation and aid these areas’ incorporation into Kurdistan.

They believe that this – together with repatriating displaced Kurds, taking control of the political, administrative and security apparatus, and removing Arab newcomers – will enable them to win local referendums that are to determine the status of Kirkuk and other contested mixed-population areas before the end of 2007.

Neither any of Kirkuk’s other communities, significant parts of the central government nor any neighbouring state supports these moves. Turkey, in particular, has said it will not tolerate Kirkuk’s absorption into the Kurdish region, and it has various means at its disposal, including last-resort military intervention.

“For the Kurds, this deadline could be a self-laid trap”, says Joost Hiltermann, Director of Crisis Group’s Middle East Project Director. “Having raised expectations, Kurdish leaders must now deliver by the end of 2007 or meet public wrath”.

All parties should make clear their intention to pursue a negotiated settlement, explaining to their followers that compromises must be made for peace. The Iraqi government should invite the UN Security Council to appoint an envoy to start negotiations to designate Kirkuk governorate as a stand-alone federal region for an interim period. And the U.S. should place its weight behind such a UN-brokered political settlement.