Kirkuk is the time bomb: Why does the United States now insist on raising the issue of Article 140 of the Constitution again?
Kirkuk is the time bomb - Why does the United States now insist on raising the issue of Article 140 of the Constitution againDr. Saad Naji Jawad
Firstly, I ask my brothers in brotherly Morocco to accept, from my simple person, my deepest condolences and sincere sympathy for the divine catastrophe that befell them. I pray to the Almighty to grant them patience, to have mercy on their martyrs, to make their resting place Paradise, and to heal their wounded, and that this calamity be a reason for broad Arab solidarity that is consistent with the scale of the disaster. We belong to God and to Him we shall return.
Kirkuk Governorate, or Tamim, as the Baath Party regime called it in commemoration of the oil nationalization process (1972), is back in the spotlight following the outbreak of internal clashes between its Turkmen and Arab residents on the one hand and the Kurdish supporters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (Barzani) on the other.
The direct reason for these conflicts is the current government’s approval, without in-depth study of the issue, for the return of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and its militants to Kirkuk and to all the positions it occupied before they were removed from it in 2017 by the Iraqi army, following the regional government’s holding of the well-known referendum on independence.
It was also not studied, and imposed it on Kirkuk Governorate, which is characterized by being mixed and contains all the components of Iraq, Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and all religions and sects, Muslims, Christians, Shiites, and Sunnis. This great diversity makes it a special case that cannot, and should not, be allowed to be controlled by a specific party.
The importance and sensitivity of Kirkuk is not new, but rather began with the beginning of the declaration of the establishment of the modern state of Iraq. Britain was keen to have it under its control because it contained a large reserve of oil (the first Iraqi oil well was discovered there in 1927). At the same time, Turkey insisted on considering it under its protection, citing the high proportion of Iraqi Turkmen people who reside in it.
Also because of the oil wealth, the various Kurdish parties began to promote the idea that Kirkuk is a Kurdish city. However, the human massacre committed in 1959 against the Turkmen and some Arabs of the governorate, for which militants from the Kurdistan Communist and Democratic Parties were accused, created great tension within it, especially between the Kurds and Turkmen, the effects of which still linger to this day.
The tension was renewed when Kurdistan Democratic Party militants stormed and took control of Kirkuk and raised the Kurdish flag above its official buildings (2014), claiming that they had (unilaterally) implemented Article 140 of the Constitution (which will be discussed in the second part of the article). Then the party’s militias carried out operations to bulldoze many Arab villages, deport their residents, and resettle Kurdish families (most of them Kurds from Syria and Turkey), claiming that they were residents of the governorate who had been deported by the previous regime, all in a clear policy to (Kurdish) the governorate.
This was not the first attempt to tamper with the social fabric of Kirkuk. Since the beginning of the sixties, central governments have transferred Arab tribes to the governorate for the purpose of increasing the Arab presence there. Then the party’s militias carried out operations to bulldoze many Arab villages, deport their residents, and resettle Kurdish families (most of them Kurds from Syria and Turkey), claiming that they were residents of the governorate who had been deported by the previous regime, all in a clear policy to (Kurdish) the governorate.
This was not the first attempt to tamper with the social fabric of Kirkuk. Since the beginning of the sixties, central governments have transferred Arab tribes to the governorate for the purpose of increasing the Arab presence there. Then the party’s militias carried out operations to bulldoze many Arab villages, deport their residents, and resettle Kurdish families (most of them Kurds from Syria and Turkey), claiming that they were residents of the governorate who had been deported by the previous regime, all in a clear policy to (Kurdish) the governorate. This was not the first attempt to tamper with the social fabric of Kirkuk. Since the beginning of the sixties, central governments have transferred Arab tribes to the governorate for the purpose of increasing the Arab presence there.
In the attempts of various governments to address the problem (and even in the latest constitution), the basis put forward to determine the identity of the governorate was the necessity of adopting the 1957 census of the population, which took place in calm and normal conditions during the royal era. In that census, even if nationalism was not adopted as a basis, the language criterion was adopted. Its results showed that the percentage of people who spoke Kurdish in Kirkuk (the city center) was 33.53%, Turkish speakers were 37.62%, and Arabic speakers were 22.53%. As for the governorate as a whole, the percentages were as follows: 48.24% Turkmen, 21.44% Kurds, 28.19% Arabs.
When the March Declaration was signed in 1970, a number of Kurdish-majority districts and villages in the north of the governorate were annexed to the autonomous region, which reduced the proportion of Kurds in them. (By the way, that census, based on the same criterion, determined the percentage of Kurds in Iraq at 16% of the total Iraqi people.)
With the escalation of calls to establish a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, and due to the presence of oil and gas wealth in Kirkuk, the demand to annex it became a priority for those with this opinion. They even considered it the capital of the state or the Kurdish entity to be established. These claims, especially under the Baath regime, were supported by external parties such as the United States, Britain, and Israel. However, this support (with the exception of the Israeli one) diminished greatly after the occupation of Iraq, as evidenced when Mr. Masoud Barzani told the notorious Paul Bremer that (Kirkuk is the Holy of Holies) for the Kurds. Bremer answered him directly that one Jerusalem problem is enough and we do not want to hear about a second Jerusalem.
And he ended the topic. However, in keeping with the habit of colonial countries to leave hotbeds for future problems, Bremer and those who cooperated with him planted a mine that could explode at any moment, represented by installing a new concept in the permanent Iraqi constitution (2005), and before that in the Interim State Administration Law (2004), entitled (Disputed Territories). on her). This bad concept is considered a constitutional innovation that has no counterpart.
It is known that states, especially after major wars, demand areas that were forcefully cut off from them and consider them disputed, but it has never happened that a state that is supposed to view its people and lands as one unified entity has established such an article in its constitution. Not to mention that the use of the term “disputed” is completely incorrect, contradicts the principle of national unity, and creates hostility between the people of one people.
One of the ironies that must put a sad smile on the lips is that most of the Kurdish leaders who insist on annexing Kirkuk to the region, especially when faced with a strong rejection of this demand, come back and confirm that Kirkuk is an Iraqi and mixed governorate and must remain that way. This is what the late Jalal Talabani said and wrote when he was about to sign a reconciliation agreement with the Iraqi government in 1984, and he repeated it when he became President of the Republic, and others said it after the occupation when they felt that there was regional and international opposition to the idea of establishing an independent state.
The last person to mention this was Mr. Masoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Party, and Mr. Nechirvan Barzani, the president of the region, repeated it a few days ago, after a speech (even a threat) by Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which he stressed that Kirkuk is a red line and no party is allowed to cross it.
Despite all these statements, the various Kurdish leaders continue, and every time there is a financial dispute with the central authority, they demand the implementation of Article 140 of the Constitution, and talk about the necessity of holding a referendum in the “disputed areas,” especially in Kirkuk, mainly for the purpose of embarrassing the central authority. These words must, and must, push us to talk about this article, which remains a time bomb more dangerous than the problem of Kirkuk itself, especially after the United States recently joined the demand to implement the article, along with the Iraqi Communist Party and other Israeli mouthpieces.
Without prolonging or going around or going into many side matters that I have previously written extensively about since 2013, and in detail in today’s opinion (Iraq’s Constitution is a forged document 11/21/2019), I say that whoever demands the implementation of this article is either ignorant or has a preconceived agenda. . This is not an offense against anyone, but rather something based on facts that cannot be denied. This article is essentially forged and added to the constitution illegally and illegitimately, and its addition represents an insult to the Iraqi voters who voted on the constitution in 2005 in a general referendum. Therefore, it cannot legally be resorted to or resorted to in any dispute between the center and the region.
For those who do not know, the constitution that was written by a young American Jewish university teacher and imposed by Bremer, just as the Transitional State Administration Law was imposed before it, was a constitution consisting of only 139 articles.
Since the American goal was to approve the constitution as quickly as possible, in the shortest period, and in any way, even if fraud was adopted (and this is what happened), and as a result of the leaders of the Sunni parties objecting to the draft and demanding amendments to it, (they were ordered) by the American delegation that was following up on the issue of approving the constitution from Inside the American embassy in Baghdad, they were asked to vote yes, and he promised them to add Article No. 140, which stipulates the possibility of making amendments to the constitution within a certain period after its approval. (This article has become number 142 in the current constitution).
Thus, the head of the Islamic Party at the time went out in public and asked his constituents to vote in favor of the constitution. But when the Kurdish parties learned of this proposal, they strongly objected, and to satisfy them, five new articles were added instead of one, the first of which was Article 140, which reinstalled Article 58 of the abolished Transitional State Administration Law, which talked about (a referendum in Kirkuk and all the areas that were called disputed).
The bad faith in this article is that it considered that there were disputed areas in all the Arab governorates surrounding the Kurdish region that was declared, in Mosul, Salah al-Din, and Diyala. In other words, it laid many mines for the future and for the constitution. The most important issue is that these amendments and additions were not presented to the Constitutional Committee that approved the constitution, nor to the National Assembly that submitted it to a referendum, and they were not included in the text that was held in a referendum. Therefore, they are considered invalid and their addition is a clear forgery, and the Federal Court must decide on this matter and issue a ruling. Her rule.
Of course, the recent entry of the United States into the line, and its demand that the Iraqi state respect the article, comes for other purposes, in light of suspicious American movements in the region, which are not limited to military movements in Iraq and Syria, but have reached the point of announcing the formation of a large new military force of Kurdish militants (the Peshmerga). Its number reaches 80,000 armed men.
The United States says that it will train and equip them and cover their expenses, and claims that they will not be subject to the existing Kurdish parties. This is in addition to information leaking about its sponsorship of armed groups in western Iraq, and Iranian Kurdish fighters in the Kurdistan region of Iraq as well. With talk about Washington adopting some Baathist names. All of these moves prove beyond doubt that the American goal behind raising the issue of Article 140 is nothing but an excuse to interfere in Iraqi affairs for malicious purposes.
After clarifying all that has been said, the Kurds of Kirkuk still have the right to have someone represent them in the governorate and in any fair elections, provided that this is not done in the manner that happened between 2014 and 2017, and even before that, of trying to marginalize the Turkmen and Arab components and with many arbitrary measures. The people of The governorate they talk about, and it is the main reason for their strong opposition to the return of Kurdistan Party militants to their city. Note that the main headquarters that the party is demanding is an Iraqi government headquarters that is owned by the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and was not owned by the Kurdistan Party at one time, and was seized by force after the occupation. The Federal Court ruled that the Prime Minister’s order to return the aforementioned headquarters of the Kurdistan Party was invalid.
The Iraqi government remains required to defuse the Kirkuk crisis, which it caused, and any delay in finding a quick solution that satisfies all parties threatens to open the door to external interference that does not wish good for Iraq and its people.
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