ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Fourteen Kurdish political parties warned of continued efforts to revive Saddam Hussein era's Arabization policy in the disputed province of Kirkuk at a press conference on Sunday. "Until now, we have not let one single span of territory be invaded in Kirkuk," Mohammed Osman, a top Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official in Kirkuk, claimed to Rudaw on Sunday after a meeting between the parties. The official warned, however, that efforts to revive the notorious process are present in the province The parties last met nine months ago, during which they set up a committee to report Arabization efforts, Osman said, adding that the president of Iraq was also party to the committee. He said the coronavirus pandemic forced them to suspend their work, but at Sunday's meeting, they decided to reactivate the committee. A concerted effort under former President Saddam Hussein mostly between 1970 and 1978 brought Arabs from elsewhere in Iraq to the disputed areas of Kirkuk. After 2003, however, Iraq began a policy of de-Arabization to reverse the demographic changes. Within the framework of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, these lands were returned to the previous Kurdish inhabitants. But since the 2017 retaking of Kirkuk by the Iraqi forces, there have been reports of Arab settlers reclaiming these lands. The ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) did not attend the meeting in Kirkuk. The KDP is the only Kurdish political party that has not returned to Kirkuk since Iraqi forces retook the city from the Kurdish Peshmerga in 2017 following the Kurdistan independence referendum. The KDP did not contest the May 12, 2018 Iraqi parliamentary elections in Kirkuk, calling the city “occupied and sold out” due to the presence of Iraqi forces. "It is clear. The KDP does not want to return to Kirkuk," Osman claimed. Shakhawan Abdulla, an outspoken former KDP MP in Baghdad from Kirkuk says his party still considers the city "occupied." He says the incumbent Kirkuk governor Rakan al-Jabouri, who replaced Najmaldin Karim after he was ousted in October 2017, is "leading a group to Arabize Kirkuk." "The way Rakan al-Jabouri treats Kurds is very antagonistic," Abdulla says "The bulk of the KDP's offices are occupied in Kirkuk and the party has been stripped of its posts," Abdulla noted. The main parties taking part in Sunday's meeting included the PUK, Change Movement (Gorran), Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), and the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal). Osman says the meeting took place at the invitation of the PUK to "put in order the Kurdish house” and share a “single narrative in the city". Kirkuk is one of the disputed territories between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. Kirkuk has a mix of Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, and Christian inhabitants. Article 140 of the constitution was supposed to have resolved the issue of the disputed provinces by 2007, but successive governments have failed to implement the steps outlined in the provision. The Kirkuk province's southern district of Daquq and Sargaran town, west of Kirkuk city are the flashpoint of ongoing efforts of Arabization since October 2017.
