UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...

Article 140 of the Constitution calls for a three-step process to normalize the situation in
Kirkuk and other disputed areas by reversing the Arabization policy, including the return of
the formerly displaced and restitution of their properties, the taking of a census and, finally,
the holding of a referendum no later than 31 December 2007 to determine the status of
these areas. To date, developments linked to the “normalization” of Kirkuk have been
highly controversial and delayed by political disputes. After the fall of the former regime in
2003, thousands of Kurds returned to Kirkuk and other mixed areas, and reports appeared
that Arab and Turkmen residents in some neighbourhoods of Kirkuk were pressured by
Kurdish armed groups to leave their homes. 44
In particular, there has been considerable ethnic violence in the city of Kirkuk among
various communities as it is claimed by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs. The issues of
demographics and numbers, and therefore political influence, are highly disputed. Each of
the three groups has its own evidence proving that Kirkuk has historically been dominated
by it.
A Kirkuk Normalization Committee was first established in January 2005. However, with
no funds and staff, it never came to function. Accused of being pro-Kurdish by Turkmen
and Arab representatives, Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki appointed Mr. Ali Mahdi,
a Shi’ite Turkoman from Kirkuk, as the Committee’s chair, on 4 July 2006, a move that
was, however, rejected by the Kurdish coalition. On 9 August 2006, the Prime Minister
announced that the Kirkuk Normalization Committee would be replaced by the “Article 140
Implementation Committee”, to be chaired by Mr. Hashim Abdulrahman Al-Shibli, the
current Minister of Justice. The Committee was allocated US $200 million to perform its
task. 45 On 4 February 2007, the Committee ruled that Arabs who relocated to Kirkuk and
other disputed areas as part of the Governments’ Arabization policies would be returned to
their original home towns in Central and Southern Iraq and given land and financial
compensation. This decision implies that thousands of Arabs may lose their right to vote in
the referendum on the status of the disputed areas if they are returned to their original towns
other towns and villages in this oil-rich region; see: HRW, Claims in Conflict: Reversing Ethnic Cleansing in
Northern Iraq, August 2004, http://hrw.org/reports/2004/iraq0804/iraq0804.pdf. See also: ibidem, Iraq:
Forcible Expulsion of Ethnic Minorities, March 2003, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0303/.
44 According to Judith Yaphe, a senior fellow at the National Defense University, as many as 150,000 Arabs
have left the city since the war as a result of violence and intimidation. See: Soner Cagaptay and Daniel Fink,
The Battle for Kirkuk: How to Prevent a New Front in Iraq, Policy Watch No. 1183, The Washington
Institute, 16 January 2007, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2552; HRW, World
Report 2003, Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan, http://www.hrw.org/wr2k3/mideast4.html; Daniel Williams, 11 Killed
In Ethnic Violence In N. Iraq, The Washington Post, 24 August 2003,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37367-2003Aug23. See also “Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen428F,
Ethnic-Based Christian Groups (Assyrians, Chaldeans, Armenians)429F, Yazidis430F and Shabak431F in
Ethnically Mixed Areas”.
45 UNAMI HRO, December 2006 Human Rights Report, p. 23, see above footnote 10; Sumedha
Senanayake, Iraq: Ethnic Tensions Increasing In Oil-Rich City, RFE/RL, 2 November 2006,
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/11/304874c7-d3ff-471c-bfa3-087b0618c459.html.
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