ANKARA, 20 January 2005 — Turkey renewed accusations yesterday that more Kurds have been settling in Kirkuk than had been expelled from the oil-rich northern Iraqi city under Saddam Hussein’s regime, slamming it as “unacceptable.” Ankara is strongly opposed to Kurdish control of Kirkuk, which many Kurds would like to see as the capital of an independent Kurdish state, a nightmare scenario for Iraq’s northern neighbor.
Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Namik Tan told a press conference that the Iraqis, the United Nations and the entire international community should take measures against “fait-accomplis that will not contribute to lasting peace in Iraq ... and have negative impacts on the stability of the region.”
Last week, the Kurds reached a deal with the Iraqi government that cleared the way for an estimated 100,000 Kurds said to have been expelled from Kirkuk under Saddam to vote in Iraq’s Jan. 30 national election in Tamim province, where the city is located. The deal effectively tips the balance of power to the Kurds, at the risk of fanning tensions in the ethnically volatile city, also home to a large number of Turkmens, a community of Turkish descent backed by Ankara.
“No one in the 21st century can subject others’ land to illegal fait-accomplis,” Tan said, without explicitly naming the Kurds. “It is unacceptable for groups which object to the wrong policies and practices of the past to commit the same mistakes themselves now, under the cover of freedom, justice and democracy,” he added.
Iraqi Kurds say Kirkuk was overwhelmingly Kurdish in the 1950s before Baghdad started a deliberate campaign of “Arabization” during which tens of thousands of Kurds were expelled from the city and replaced with Arabs.
Tan said many people in Kirkuk were now concerned that “some elements are drifting toward a mistake which may have grave consequences. “They say that hundreds of thousands of settlers are being shifted to Kirkuk and the majority of them have neither personal nor family bonds with Kirkuk. The methods and mechanisms of return have been clearly determined. They should be implemented in a legitimate way,” he said.
Turkey also has asked Iraqi authorities to launch legal proceedings against two Kurdish parties, believed to be linked to Turkish Kurd rebels who have been fighting a bloody war against Ankara, officials said. About 5,000 members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a 15-year armed campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey, are estimated to have found refuge across the border in northern Iraq prior to the US-led occupation of the country in March 2003.
Tan said the “terrorist organization” - Ankara’s traditional description of the PKK - was now “making efforts to politicize in Iraq by using some Iraqi citizens whose support it has.” PKK’s efforts include plans “to insert into the Iraqi national system some political formations that it can use in the future,” he told a news conference.
“We have asked the Iraqi interim government to launch legal proceedings against two parties which we consider as linked to the terrorist organization. We have handed over to the Iraqi administration the related information we have and we will continue to closely watch the issue,” Tan said. The spokesman did not name the two parties.
