ANKARA, 14 October 2004 — Turkey said yesterday that Iraq’s neighbors must have a say in the future of the ethnically volatile, oil-rich city of Kirkuk because it is a potential threat to regional stability. Ankara’s message was addressed to Iraqi Kurds, who want the city incorporated in an enlarged, autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.
“Kirkuk is the most likely place in Iraq for ethnic clashes to break out — that’s why Kirkuk is not an internal affair of Iraq, it is a place that can have very serious effects on Iraq’s neighbors,” said Osman Koruturk, Turkey’s special representative to the war-torn country. “We are determined to ensure that what happens in Iraq does not have negative consequences for us... The issue of Kirkuk carries such potential danger,” he tokd NTV television.
The official was speaking one day after Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani said during a visit to Ankara that the city has a Kurdish “identity” and vowed to fight any force attempting to oppress its people.
Kirkuk also has a large population of Turkmens, an ethnic community of Turkish descent, which enjoys Ankara’s support.
Iraqi Kurds say Kirkuk was overwhelmingly Kurdish in the 1950s before Baghdad started a deliberate campaign of “Arabization” during which thousands of Arabs were encouraged to settle in the city. They are now trying to chase the Arabs out and many want the city to become the capital of an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq.
Ankara fears that Kurdish control of the Kirkuk oil fields — among the richest in Iraq — could encourage Iraqi Kurds to break away from Baghdad, fanning separatist sentiment among Kurds in neighboring southeast Turkey and trigger new turmoil in the region.
Two other Iraqi neighbors, Syria and Iran, are also home to Kurdish communities.
Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Namik Tan yesterday reiterated a warning to Iraq’s Kurds not to upset the demographic make-up of Kirkuk. “Turkey cannot stand by and watch the changing of (Kirkuk’s) status ... through faits accomplis,” he told reporters.
