Land disputes between Kurdish farmers, Arab residents resurface in Kirkuk

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A court in the district of Tuz Khurmatu, in Iraq’s central Salahaddin province, is reviewing lawsuits filed by several Arab residents against seven Kurdish farmers, seeking to seize more than 170 dunams of farmland - equivalent to 425,000 square meters, based on Iraq’s definition of a dunam as 2,500 square meters.

The court session was held on Monday and attended by the farmers and their lawyer.

Ahmed Juma’a, a representative of the Kurdish farmers from Tapa Soz village, east of the disputed Kirkuk province, told Rudaw that “the lawsuits were filed by seven Arab citizens against seven Kurdish farmers, demanding confiscation of their lands in Tapa Soz,” adding that the land “exceeds 170 dunams [around 425,000 square meters] in area.”

The disputes extend beyond the current cases, with more than 1,800 dunams (equivalent to 4.5 square kilometers) contested in the villages of Tapa Soz and Haliwa between the original Kurdish landowners and several Arab residents.

Land disputes between Arab settlers and Kurdish farmers in Kirkuk and surrounding areas date back to the Baath era under the toppled Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

In 1975, a number of Kurdish villages in Kirkuk were declared prohibited oil zones, and residents were stripped of their land rights. By 1977, the Baath Supreme Revolutionary Court had redistributed those lands to Arab settlers under agricultural contracts.

One of the farmers named in the lawsuits, Arkan Hamid, told Rudaw on Monday, “We were on our lands until 1987. Between 1990 and 2003, contracts were organized for Arab residents, and after 2003 we returned to our lands - but now they have come demanding to confiscate them from us.”

Hamid said his land measures 36 dunams (around 90,000 square meters) and is being claimed by Arab residents who submitted what he described as worn-out contracts to the court. “There are farmers who have been fined more than 50 million Iraqi dinars [around $38,000] based on lawsuits filed by Arabs,” he added.

Iraq’s parliament in January 2025 passed a land restitution law aimed at returning property confiscated from Kurds and Turkmen during the Baath era. The legislation covers approximately 300,000 dunams (around 750 square kilometers) in Kirkuk and other disputed areas and follows a July 2023 federal government decision to revoke Baath-era agricultural contracts.