After Daesh: Kirkuk is the next conflict in Iraq

After Daesh: Kirkuk is the next conflict in Iraq

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The Iraqi society , very diversity,  has never reached such a degree of disintegration which arrived today, which makes Iraq ready to enter into a new maze of internal wars once  to end the war on Daesh. Amid expectations that the expulsion Daesh will open the door to the return of competition between local forces backed externally to establish the control over wider areas, especially the disputed oil areas such as Kirkuk. The specter of sectarian and ethnic war is predominating on the number of Iraqi areas, known as the diversity of the demographic composition especially those disputed between the central government and the Iraqi Kurdistan regime, such as Kirkuk, which its mosaic population has become as   a powder keg ready to explode at any moment.

The war progress on the organization Daesh  accelerated  the pace of the conflict on a number of areas of Iraq, with the emergence of the desire of the parties to participate in that war  to exploit them to change the currently recognized borders and the alteration of the map of the  control on the areas. Previously, the President of Iraqi Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani  expressed  it by saying, “The borders of the region is now drawing by blood.” and several Iraqi regions of  diverse  races and creeds  witnessed  in the past years, the outbreak of armed conflicts  that were considered a  threatening indicator  of the ethnic and  sectarian conflict fueled by regional ambitions ,  and may be the title of the stage after a war on  Daesh in Iraq, including the resulting from the  predominance of irregular forces out of the control of the state, in exchange for declining  of the status of the  Iraqi armed forces and the fall of the prestige.

One of those areas is the Kirkuk province, which is considered a model for the diversity of the population structure in Iraq, noting that the nationalities of the Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen coexist within it, and ideologically, the Sunni and Shiite coexist within it   . And it is worth noting that Kirkuk, the center of northern Iraq, is of great importance economically. It is famous for its oil production, and where there are six largest oil fields in the local city of Kirkuk, the capital of the province. The oil reserves of about 13 billion barrels of oil and the oil of the north is exported through the northern oil pipeline north to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The population of the province of Kirkuk reached 752 thousand people according to the census took place in 1997, and the city of Kirkuk is considered among the disputed areas, according to Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution. Kirkuk province is divided into four administrative districts which they are     the  city of  Kirkuk   with an estimation of people   about 450 thousand people, and Daquq about 50 thousand people, and Dibis estimated at about 100  thousand people,  and the district of  Hawija by 500 thousand people.

Followers of the Iraqi affair  believe that the various local armed factions will invest   the gains of  war of ammunitions  and military expertise, and  regional and international  recognition  for  its role in the war on Daesh, to fight new wars over the spoils, considering that the factions of the Shiite popular crowd  forces and Kurdish Peshmerga will be  influential in the  battles of establishing the ethnic and sectarian new maps. Perhaps Kirkuk will be the first one of that establishment as the local media published a formal letter of the governor of Kirkuk province, Najm al-Din Karim demanding the council of province for the approval to raise the flag of Kurdistan next to the Iraqi flag in all government institutions in the city. According to the letter of the governor of Kirkuk, published two days ago included that “on the occasion of Nawrouz and the fact that Kirkuk is being    among the disputed areas and included by Article 140 of the Constitution of Iraq   I ask your council for the approval to raise the Kurdistan flag next to the flag of the Iraqi Republic in all offices of the province, and in formal occasions.” In response to a request of the governor of Kirkuk, on 20 March, representatives of the Turkmen component held a meeting at the level of leaders calling for the province to reject the resolution, which said it aims to create sedition among the components of the province. In this context, Hassan Turan, MP of the Turkmen saying: “The participants expressed their decisive rejection for this decision as it is contrary to the Iraqi Constitution and laws in force and works to create sedition among the components of Kirkuk, which we are keen to strengthen the fraternal relationship between them, and the provincial council has to refuse to discuss this decision because it is contrary to the Constitution and will make a rift between the council blocs.”

The same applies to that of refusing position to raise the Kurdish flag over government institutions in Kirkuk, the position of the Iraqi government of it, where the Iraqi government spokesman, Saad al-Hadithi said on the current 20 March, that it is necessary to raise the Iraqi flag alone in the province of Kirkuk, because the flag of the Kurdistan regime is unconstitutional, noting that the Iraqi government rejects all unilateral positions on this side.    Al-Hadethi added   “The Iraqi constitution has made clear the powers of local governments in the provinces that are not linked to the province, also explained the powers of the federal government-and the province of Kirkuk, one of these provinces,”. and  about the presence of Kirkuk within the disputed areas,  a spokesman for the Iraqi government said  ”  these areas are still under the jurisdiction of the Iraqi government, and this is not permissible to raise other flags of  non-Iraqi flag in areas beyond the  areas of borders of the Kurdistan regime, and   it is not permitted to raise  other flags  on government offices as well, all of these things are within the powers  of the federal government and Kirkuk among the provinces which  is among the powers of this government, similar to the rest of the provinces, and the need to raise the Iraqi flag only. ”

Rejection was not limited on the inside of Iraq , but also spread to Turkey, where Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Hussein Mufti Ihsanoglu said that “the demands of the raising  the flag of the Kurdish region next to  the Iraqi flag over the offices of Kirkuk city during weekly working days, it may lead to the risk of damaging the attempts to bring stability and compatibility in Iraq. ” and  Ihsanoglu said in a statement that “unilateral actions in this regard, would create the risk of erosion of the identity of Kirkuk, which is characterized by cultural pluralism, and reflect the social and economic riches of Iraq.”

Followers of Iraqi affairs   considered that Turkey, which presents itself as an ally of the President of the Iraqi Kurdistan region, Massoud Barzani, want to cut off the road in front of the Peshmerga so as not working to invest its role in the war on Daesh, or to crack down on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party of Turkey to extend its influence over the region candidate to be and arena for long-term ethnic war. The position of Mufti Ihsanoglu was not surprising, as the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already said in a statement in October last year that “we cannot leave our brothers in Kirkuk and Mosul alone.” Analysts pointed out that the Turkish president realistically deal with the Kurdistan region, and that he wants Barzani to stand with him against the Kurds in Turkey and Syria’s Kurds, without giving him any support for it to set up the status of the regime as an Iraqi regime. Not ruling out that the conflict circle around Kirkuk would be widened under the tension in Syria between Turkey and the Kurds, who have been turned into a pivotal state in the Syrian file, with the pursuit of both Washington and Moscow to play the Kurdish card to fix their interests in the northern Syria.

Followers of the Iraqi affairs warns  that the  province of Kirkuk to be the beginning of a new conflict in Iraq after Daesh  given a lot and diverse weapon that has become  available in the hands of Shiite militias, on the one hand and the growing strength of the Kurdish Peshmerga compared to the Iraqi army and increasing the aspirations of the Iraqi Kurds to establish their independent state and to expand the borders of their territory to the disputed areas such as the oil-rich province of Kirkuk. Where  such conflicts   indicate ,  that fear could be turned into moveable fires across parts of Iraq, to the serious damage caused to the unity of Iraqi society which is very diverse society ,   a damage  which  is heading towards the degree of explosion due to the existing chaos of weapons, and the large number of   paramilitary irregular bodies , as well as the abundance of  tension factors of sectarian and ethnic hostility and regional interventions to translate the size of  ambitions towards the weak  Iraq. The war on the “deash” may be not the final stage   in the armed conflicts in Iraq, but may be an introduction to a  compound civil war  of sectarian  and  national character.

The Iraqi Studies Unit

Translated by : Mudhaffar al-Kusairi

Rawabet Center for  Research and Strategic Studies