“The Iraqi army soldiers affiliated with the Eastern Salahaddin Operations are providing support to the Arabs brought in to seize the agricultural lands of the Kurdish farmers,” Mullah Hassan Garmiani, representative of Kurdish farmers in Kirkuk’s Daquq district, told Rudaw.
He accused the army of arresting four Kurdish farmers while they were irrigating their farms “even though these lands do not have any legal problems.” The farmers were later released.
But Eastern Salahaddin Operations commander Major General Ali al-Maliki denied the accusations, saying they do not operate in Daquq and are unaware of the arrest of Kurdish farmers in the area.
“We do not distinguish between Kurdish and Arab farmers. Our work is solely on providing security and we do not interfere in land disputes,” Maliki told Rudaw.
In May, heightened tensions between Kurdish farmers and Arab settlers reached a boiling point near the village of Palkana in Kirkuk after the settlers prevented farmers from harvesting their crops, citing ownership documents for the land that date back to the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein.
In November, the Iraqi army prohibited Kurdish farmers in Kirkuk’s Sargaran subdistrict from plowing their fields in preparation for planting winter crops. Some Kurdish farmers also claimed Arab farmers have blocked them from working their farms. The land in dispute was part of Baathist-era demographic changes that forced Kurds and Turkmen off their land and brought in Arab settlers.
Kirkuk Governor Rebwar Taha intervened and an agreement was reached to allow Kurdish farmers temporary access to most of their land in order to plant. However, farmers in the area say they are frustrated because they are still being denied access.
Disputes between Arab settlers and Kurdish farmers date back to the Baathist era. Land in several villages was taken away from Kurdish farmers by the Iraqi government in 1975 on the grounds that they were located in prohibited oil zones. Two years later, under Decree No. 949 issued by the Baath Supreme Revolutionary Court, the land was given to Arabs who were resettled in the area from elsewhere in Iraq.
After 2003 and the fall of the Baath regime, Iraq began a policy of de-Arabization within the framework of Article 140 of the constitution, which aims to reverse the demographic changes carried out by former dictator Hussein. The article has never been fully implemented, however, and land disputes still exist.
The land restitution bill, submitted by Kurdish lawmakers, has faced opposition from Arab legislators.