ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A day after residents of a Kirkuk neighborhood were told by the Iraqi army to evacuate their homes, the parliament’s second deputy speaker on Wednesday said that Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani directed the defense ministry to withdraw from the neighborhood and cease the operation.
Forces of the Iraqi army in the early hours of Tuesday began knocking on the doors of Kirkuk city’s Newroz neighborhood, informing the families residing there that they needed to evacuate their homes on the grounds that the neighborhood is property of the defense ministry.
A total of 172 families, mostly Kurds, reside in the neighborhood’s 122 houses. They told Rudaw that they fear they might be forced out of their homes as the Iraqi army plans to turn the neighborhood into a military base.
“I spoke to the Iraqi prime minister and thankfully he directed the defense ministry to withdraw and ordered for that topic to be closed and for no civilians to be forced out of their homes,” said Shakhawan Abdullah, the Iraqi parliament’s second deputy speaker, in a statement.
The Kirkuki lawmaker added that he has also spoken to commander of the Kirkuk Operations, Major General Jabbar Naima, reassuring that “he will implement the order.”
The houses in the Newroz neighborhood were previously inhabited by members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party. After the fall of the regime, Kurdish families from Kirkuk who were displaced to other parts of the country, returned to the neighborhood and began residing in those houses.
A decree issued by the former Kirkuk provincial council granted the families the right to remain in the houses until the federal government provided them with compensation.
“Ever since October 16, 2017, they come to us at least once a month and want to force us out of here,” a resident of the neighborhood told Rudaw.
The Commander of the Iraqi army’s 11th Division last May sent a letter to the Kirkuk agriculture department, asking the institution to make swathes of land in several villages south of Kirkuk available to be turned into military bases and residential units for the soldiers. The decree was strongly opposed by Kurdish and Turkmen farmers who held sit-in protests for over a month.
Kirkuk is a multiethnic city home to Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, as well as an Assyrian minority. It was under joint administration before 2014, when Kurds took full control after Iraqi forces withdrew in the face of a brazen offensive by the Islamic State (ISIS) group threatening the city. Kurds held Kirkuk until October 16, 2017, when Iraqi forces retook control and expelled the Peshmerga forces after the province took part in Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum.
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