linked - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Ozeti
TIleMiddleEast
December 2006
The worst
case
scenario
•
KURDISH LEADERS
TALK MORE AND
MORE OPENLV OF
INDEPENDENCE,
SATISFIED FOR THE
TIME SEING WITH A
FEDERAL SOLUTION
Iraqi Kurds are increasingly restless about the
future of the region, the promised referendum
and the debate over withdrawal of western troops.
Chris Kutschera reports
THE FATE OF Kirkuk, Khanakin and
Sinjar and their eventual reintegration
into the Kurdish region continues
to hound Baghdad. Former
Prime Minister Iyad Allawi created
a 'normalisation commission' with a view to
addressing the Kurdish displacement. The
commission, chaired by Hamid Majid Musa,
secretary-general of the Iraqi Communist
Party was allocated a budget of $80m but
remained without members, without headquarters,
and without money because the
$80m was never transferred.
The situation deteriorated still more under
Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who encouraged
the Shi'a Arabs who fled Kirkuk after the
fall of Saddam Hussein to come back.
But dunng his July meetings at Erbil with
Massoud and Nechirvan Barzani (president
and prime minister of the Kurdish region),
Nuri Al Maliki, the new prime mimster of
the Iraqi government dwelt at length on the
implementation of article 140of the new Iraqi
constitution, which stipulates the organisation
of a referendum in the disputed areas
before December 2007.
He announced the creation of a new 'normalisation
commission' of nine members,
chamd by justice minister Hachem Chibli
- a liberal Shi'a whose wife is Kurdish - with
a budget of $200m, which was immediately
transferred. He even discussed details of the
normalisation of the situation in Kirkuk, and
the departure of the Arabs transplanted by
Saddam Hussein withm the framework of
his campaign of Arabisation: their houses
slwuld be bought back, and they should be
provided with tents and money in order to
resettle in Southern Iraq, allowing the Kurds
to return home.
Moreover, Al Maliki committed himself
to reintegrating the districts which were arbitrarily
detached by Saddam Hussein (Kifri,
Tuz Khurmatu, Kalar and Chemchemal)
into the governorate of Kirkuk. This, he said,
would be implemented by government decree
in March 2007.A census would take place in
July 2007 and the referendum in December
2007. Already several thousand Shi 'a Arabs
from Kirkuk have sent a delegation to the
Kurdish parliament in Erbil indicating they
are ready to move if provided with the necessary
assistance.
Whether this timetable will be respected
and Al Maliki can impose his will on the
other members of the government remains to
be seen. Experts underline that the 'commission
for the solution of conflicted property'
has already received more than 40,000 files,
of which only 3,000 have been resolved.
But even if the authorities in Baghdad
display their goodwill, it will be physically
impossible to solve tens of thousands of cases
within one year and to organise and assist the
departure of the Arabs and the return of the
Kurds who, in most cases, have no houses
or schools.
And many Kurds are convinced that, in
spite of the prime minister's commitment,
Arab leaders in Baghdad will do everything
in their power to postpone a referendum indefinitely.
One concern is that no-one knows
how it will be organised: district by district,
or globally for the disputed areas.
The Kurdish leaders are divided on what
line to follow if this happens. "If the Arabs
refuse to organise the referendum, we will
apply the law of sin jar - i.e. we will use force,"
says a Kurdish general. "There is no way to
compromise on the date of the referendum, it
is December 2007.If we do, we destroy everything,"
claims Adnan Mufti, a PUK politician
and the speaker of the Kurdish parliament.
Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani is more
concilia tory: "There is no other option if we
want a working fMeral solution. But the question
of Kirkuk is a very complicated issue.
What is most important is to have a strong
will to solve the issue. If needed, we must be
patient. Maybe the referendum will not take
place at the fixed date. We want a political
solution."
Many Kurds are haunted by the fear that
the US, UK and Turkey will push Baghdad
on proposing a 'special statu te' for Kirkuk,
which would, in fact, scrap its reintegration
into a Kurdish region whose fate is already
very uncertain.
Meanwhile, Kurdish leaders talk more
and more openly of independence. Massoud
Barzani has repeated several times that it is a
'legitimate right', but that the Kurds, aware of
geopolitical conditions, appear satisfied for
the time being with a federal solution.
Barzani's adviser, Fuad Hussein, says
Kurds and Arabs should agree on a truly
federal solution, with the creation of three
federal regions - Sunni, Shi'a and Kurdish
- with Baghdad as a federal capital. "If not," he
says, the Kurds will separate ... "provided we
enjoy the support of the US and the presence
of American bases in Kurdlstan." If not? Hussein
only answers: "What can the peshmergas
(Kurdish fighters) do against Turkey?"
Those demanding sorne form ofindependence
tend to forget the brief existence of the
Republic ofMahabad (22 January-17 December
1946). Set up in Iranian Kurdistan under
the shadow, if not the protection, of the Soviet
armed forces which occupied the northern
part ofIran, the Kurdish Republic governed
by Qazi Mohammed collapsed when the Soviets
were forced to withdraw their forces from
Iran and abandoned the Kurds.
The Kurds are perhaps too complacent
about US support. Their current situation
is based on a 'Region of Kurdistan', created
in 1991at the initiative of a US, British, French
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