Talks over Kirkuk administration resume under UN supervision

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – After six months of suspension, a committee tasked with settling the status of the disputed city of Kirkuk has resumed activity under the supervision of the United Nations, as well as Iraq’s president and prime minister. 

The committee members include Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen who represent the diversity of the embattled and oil-rich province. The body aims to settle long-standing sectarian divisions and finally select a local administration in meetings set to start next week.

The resumption of the committee’s work comes amid mounting pressure from Kurdish and Turkmen groups who allege that the current local administration in Kirkuk is pursuing a campaign of “Arabization” in the province, as well as continuing attacks by the Islamic State (ISIS) group. 

“I call on all the ethnicities in Kirkuk to gather and discuss the issues together,” Ismail Hadidi, Iraqi President Advisor and committee representative said in an interview with Rudaw in Kirkuk on Wednesday. 

“There is a demand by the Turkmen to grant them the position of the governor of Kirkuk province, while the Kurds also have their demands,” Hadidi said. 

Kirkuk is one of the territories disputed between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) seated in Erbil. The city has long had a diverse indigenous mix of Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, and Christian inhabitants. The natural balance has been disrupted ever since Iraq’s former President Saddam Hussein forcibly transferred people to and from Kirkuk and the surrounding areas during his reign, exacerbating communal tensions. 

Erbil jointly administered Kirkuk and other disputed territories with Baghdad until 2014, when Iraqi forces were overrun by ISIS militants, who seized control of over a third of the country. Kurdish Peshmerga forces quickly moved in to secure the province, which remained fully under Kurdish control until October 2017, when Iraqi forces retook the territories following the KRG’s abortive referendum on independence.

The final status of Kirkuk and surrounding areas remains unsettled, leading to a security vacuum between Erbil’s and Baghdad’s military forces, which ISIS militants have been able to exploit to continue launching attacks and harassing the local population.

Turkmen political blocs are now pushing to take the lead in the province by electing a Turkmen governor, while the request is largely rejected by Kurdish blocs. 

The dispute has meant that Kirkuk has not had a provincial council election since 2005, mainly due to its disputed nature and disagreements among the province's ethnic and religious communities. Kurds largely dominated in the 2005 vote, winning 26 out of a possible 41 seats in the provincial council when they ran on the joint Kurdistan Brotherhood List that also included some Turkmen parties. 

“There is a clear procedure regarding the distribution of power in Kirkuk province, and this procedure is the election results,” Rebwar Taha, Kurdish MP in Iraqi parliament told Rudaw on Wednesday. 

“No one can reject the election results after 2003, and clearly the results clearly show who earned the majority of the seats in the provincial council,” Taha added.

A local Kurdish farmer in Kirkuk told Rudaw on Wednesday that if the committee reaches an agreement to resolve the issues among themselves, then the province can move forward. 

“If the committee reached an agreement, then the situation will be better,” Seliman Tolki, a farmer in Kirkuk told Rudaw.

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