Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise

Introduction

Introduction Iraq has witnessed many dates of significance in recent years. Following the invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the subsequent overthrow of the Ba’th regime, events in Iraq have dominated the attention of the world’s media, and rarely a day has passed that did not experience some momentous or bloody occurrence. Compared with many previous months, however, July 2008 was quiet. Certainly, political arguments continued to rage in Baghdad among different political factions, and the security situation, while considerably better than in previous years, still remained a cause for concern. Controversial issues remained unresolved , and actions taken by the Iraqi government continued to gain as many, if not more, detractors than supporters. Such actions included the ongoing security push against rogue Sunni and Shi’i elements (namely those Sunni tribes capable of challenging the government, and the Shi’i jaish al-Mahdi militia of Muqtada al-Sadr); the tense negotiations with the US government over a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and a wider Strategic Agreement, as well as the grueling political struggle between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi government’s Ministry of Oil over the interpretation of the constitution’s provisions for the management of Iraq’s oil reserves also served to divide opinion within the government and across the country at large.1 However, compared to the rest of the period since 2003, July 2008 did not grip the attention of the world’s media. Perhaps it should have. While there were some indications of a degree of normalcy returning to Iraq following the surge of US forces over preceding months, combined with a degree of optimism in the media in general that Iraq had, at last, turned a corner, the unresolved question concerning the future of the city and province of Kirkuk took on new importance in July 2008. As a city divided among different ethnic groups—Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs (with a smaller Christian community )—and with groups clinging to mutually incompatible visions of 2 Introduction what Kirkuk’s future should be, Kirkuk had long been considered an ethnic powder keg waiting to explode. Yet finding a resolution to the complex problem of Kirkuk’s future status has proven elusive, and by July 2008 time had effectively run out. In the ‘‘new Iraq’’ the Kurds have become an important force in the politics of the state. They actively participated in the formation of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC), hastily scrabbled together following Saddam’s removal, and were then leading members of the Iraqi Transitional Government (ITG) and eventually the first sovereign government formed after the elections of December 2005. In the December elections and, more importantly, the preceding referendum that ratified the draft constitution, the Kurds had shown that they not only possessed military power (their forces were, relatively speaking, far more capable than those of other militias and even the Iraqi army) but also enjoyed the popular support of an increasingly nationalist Kurdish populace. For the Kurds, certain issues had to be resolved in the new Iraq, and the future of Kirkuk was at the forefront of these. Yet allowing Kirkuk to join with the Kurdistan Region was not straightforward. Kirkuk is important not just to the Kurdish community. It is home to a sizable number of Turkmens who relate their presence to the status they enjoyed during the time of the Ottoman Empire. The Arab community too views its presence there as legitimate and proof that Kirkuk, far from being Kurdish or Turkmen, is in fact nothing less than Iraqi. As Kirkuk was the center of Iraq’s northern oil industry, sitting atop one of the country’s supergiant oil fields, preserving Kirkuk’s identity as an Iraqi city was a key element of state policy for all regimes in modern Iraq, and this discourse remains strong even in the post-2003 setting. Even more important than the demographic issue is the powerful symbolism of Kirkuk. Clearly, Kirkuk is important for the Kurds; it is the city they had never held and over which they have fought with the Iraqi government for the best part of fifty years. Yet, Kirkuk also holds significance for Turkmens as a residual symbol of their dominance and ‘‘greatness ’’ under the Ottomans, and for Arabs, it is seen as the epitome of a multicultural Iraq. In essence, Kirkuk is evidence of Iraq’s ability to overcome communal identities and to embrace an all-encompassing notion of ‘‘Iraqiness.’’ Viewed this way...