Forces of the Iraqi army have been stationed in Kirkuk city’s Newroz neighborhood since early January, demanding families residing there to evacuate their homes on the grounds that the neighborhood is the official property of the defense ministry.
Residents of the neighborhood have staged sit-in protests in response as Kurdish officials in Baghdad continue discussions to stop the takeover.
“The army’s interference in the houses of the neighborhood will be removed and they must withdraw from the houses that they are in,” Iraqi Justice Minister Khalid Shwani, a Kurd, told Rudaw on Saturday, expressing his support for a decision by the General Secretariat of the Iraqi Council of Ministers to cease the operation.
Shwani said that representatives of the neighborhood are in Baghdad and have arranged a meeting with the secretariat, with the aim of finding a lasting solution to the dispute.
A total of 172 families, mostly Kurds, reside in Newroz’s 122 houses. The Iraqi army has seized at least six houses of residents who were not at home when the operation began and have continued to occupy them to this day.
Houses in the neighborhood were previously inhabited by members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party. After the fall of the regime, Kurdish families from Kirkuk who were displaced to other parts of the country returned and took up residence in those houses.
Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority which oversaw Iraq after 2003, issued a decree to register these houses as properties of the finance ministry.
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.
Last week, an unidentified assailant opened fire near a tent set up by Kurdish residents of the neighborhood protesting the decision to seize their homes.
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.
