Politics

Kirkuk slides into violence over Kurdish party HQ handover

The KDP had used the building until late 2017, when — following a referendum on the independence of the Kurdistan Region that was strongly opposed by the central government — federal forces and Iranian-backed Shiite militias took over the city

AFP

Iraqi protesters block a road following protests in the multi-ethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk on September 2, 2023.

Kirkuk slides into violence over Kurdish party HQ handover

Shelly Kittleson

last update on 03 Sep 2023

Erbil: Following a week’s closure and several people killed in a night of violence, the main road between the capital of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) and Kirkuk was reopened on the morning of 3 September.

The dispute over the planned handing back of a Kurdish political party headquarters from federal forces showcases continuing distrust between local communities in Iraq — especially in areas disputed between the central government in Baghdad and its regional counterpart in Erbil.

Following the outbreak of violence, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani ordered a curfew in the city of Kirkuk and “extensive security operations in the areas affected by the riots”.

AFP — Iraqi security forces deploy in the multi-ethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk on September 3, 2023, after curfew was lifted.

The decision was then made on 3 September to postpone handing the buildings back to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) — the largest in the KRI — and the curfew was lifted.

KRI prime minister Masrour Barzani stated on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he strongly condemned the “acts against democratic values and peaceful coexistence in Kirkuk today. I also express deepest sympathies and condemn the chauvinistic attacks that led to the death and injury of a number of Kurdish citizens”.

I strongly condemn the acts against democratic values and peaceful coexistence in Kirkuk today. I also express deepest sympathies and condemn the chauvinistic attacks that led to the death and injury of a number of Kurdish citizens.
— Masrour Barzani (@masrourbarzani) September 2, 2023

Victim warned of ‘sectarian war’, urged calm

One of those killed over the night, the Kurdish citizen Hawkar Abdullah, had been interviewed earlier in the day by the local television channel Kurdistan 24.

During the interview, Abdullah said: “I call on Kurdish leaders” to “calm these people down. If it continues like this then a sectarian war will break out. I once again want to affirm that Kirkuk is a Kurdistani city that also contains Turkmen and Arabs."

"Kirkuk is a Kurdistani city:" the last words of Hawkar Abdullah, a Kurdish protester from Kirkuk who spoke to Rudaw before meeting his end by a fatal bullet to the chest during the demonstrations on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/8I2nyiFLGb
— Rudaw English (@RudawEnglish) September 2, 2023

Photos later circulated online of Abdullah in his ironed, white-button-down shirt soaked in blood after being shot, as well as ones of him in Kurdish Peshmerga attire from previous years. He was reportedly a Peshmerga fighter from the official forces linked to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the second-largest party in the KRI.

The government is a major employer in all of Iraq — known for its bloated public sector but also for late payment of wages. Many soldiers both in the regional and federal forces have more than one job, often out of necessity.

Abdullah said during the interview that he was a native of the Arafa area of the city near Rahimawa, where the violence occurred. Arafa is an area in the northern part of the oil-rich city built by the North Oil Company in the 1940s for its workers.

A member of the federal security forces on Saturday night sent Al Majalla a video of young men destroying vehicles and claimed that Abdullah had been among them prior to being killed.

AFP — Burnt cars are pictured at the site of a sit-in near the headquarters of the Iraqi security forces in the multi-ethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk on September 3, 2023, after curfew was lifted.

Al Majalla could not distinguish anyone in the video that may have been the victim. On Sunday morning a member of the security forces, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said 12 people had been injured over the night.

Al Majalla received from another source the names of 16 people allegedly injured in the shooting and other forms of violence over the night, when cars were set alight, property destroyed and tension in the city surged. The youngest person recorded as having been injured was 16 while the oldest was 55.

Names appearing on hospital records sent to Al Majalla show that at least three men were killed: two whose job was recorded as “Peshmerga” and one man in his early twenties.

Kurdistan 24 quoted a local police source as saying that four people had been killed. It was later reported that the fourth person killed had “succumbed to his wounds and was pronounced dead on Sunday morning”.

The media outlet quoted his relatives as saying he had been “shot merely because he carried a Kurdistan flag” by “the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF)”.

The dispute over the planned handing back of a Kurdish political party headquarters from federal forces showcases continuing distrust between local communities in Iraq. Following the outbreak of violence, Iraq's PM ordered a curfew in the city of Kirkuk.

Protest in 'Jerusalem of Kurdistan'

Protestors had closed the main road from Erbil to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk the previous Sunday, setting up tents near the Kirkuk Joint Operations Command (JOC) buildings.

They had vowed to remain until the prime minister rescinded a decision to hand back buildings formerly used by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) that for several years had been used by the Joint Operations Command (JOC), which includes several different federal forces.

The Erbil-based KDP is the KRI's largest political party.

The city had been jointly managed by the central government in Baghdad and the regional one in Erbil until 2014 when Kurdish Peshmerga forces took control of it and defended it against an onslaught by the Islamic State.

The KDP then ceased all its operations in the province.

The KDP had used the building until late 2017, when — following a referendum on the independence of the Kurdistan Region that was strongly opposed by the central government — federal forces and Iranian-backed Shiite militias took over the city.

A flashpoint city

Kirkuk has long been a flashpoint city on which a great deal of stability in the country rides, given Iraq's dependence on oil and its need for cooperation between its various ethnic and religious communities.

The agreement to form the current government under Sudani – who was sworn in last October over a year after parliamentary elections and months of tension and political stalemate – reportedly included a provision for the KDP's return to the Kirkuk province.

The Kurdish political party headquarters was to have been handed over on 28 August, ahead of provincial council elections slated to be held across all of Iraq except the KRI on 18 December.

The last provincial council elections were held in 2013, prior to IS's taking of vast swathes of the country and Iraq's 2014-2017 war against the international terrorist organisation.

Millions were displaced by IS occupation of their lands and over a million Iraqis remain internally displaced now, almost six years after IS was officially declared defeated in Iraq.

Kurds tend to feel strongly that they should have full or at least majority control over the oil-rich but multi-ethnic city. Many cite the need to make amends for a 1970s Arabisation programme in the province as well as the never-implemented plan to do so as part of Iraq's 2005 constitution.

Kurds tend to feel strongly that they should have full or at least majority control over the oil-rich but multi-ethnic city. Many cite the need to make amends for a 1970s Arabisation programme in the province.

'Jerusalem of Kurdistan'

The Kurdish leader and former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani once called Kirkuk the "Jerusalem of Kurdistan".

Sheikh Jaafar Sheikh Mustafa, who has served as KRI vice president since September 2019, told me in a 2016 interview in the Kirkuk region during the fight against IS that "All Kurds grow up with the idea that the Hamrin Mountains are the border of Kurdistan".

The Hamrin mountain range stretches from the Diyala province bordering Iran to the Salah al-Din province through the southern part of the Kirkuk region.

He had at that time also lamented a lack of discipline and unified command among the PMF as well as poor coordination with the central government.

Local sources contacted by Al Majalla claimed many of those engaged in closing access to the road over the previous week were members and supporters of the Shiite-led, Iran-linked Asaib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) political party and armed faction.

AAH has since 2016 had brigades within the PMF — which now receives government salaries and was formed in 2014 to fight IS — but had existed for a decade before that, mainly fighting US-led international coalition forces in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. AAH is known to have received funding and support from Iran.

Opposition to handover came from outside region

Kurdish inhabitants of Kirkuk claim people not from the region were the ones opposing the handover and blocking the road, creating numerous problems for the local inhabitants in an already suffering economy.

AFP — Iraqi protesters block a road following protests in the multi-ethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk on September 2, 2023. At least one civilian was killed and eight people were injured in the city of Kirkuk, as authorities imposed a curfew.

PM Barzani's statement urged "the oppressed Kurdistanis in Kirkuk to exercise restraint and refrain from violence, and I urge the indigenous Arab and Turkmen citizens of Kirkuk not to allow outsiders to destabilise the city or disturb the peace and coexistence between Kirkuk's diverse people".

Kurdish inhabitants of Kirkuk claim people not from the region were the ones opposing the handover and blocking the road, creating numerous problems for the local inhabitants in an already suffering economy.

A video circulated on social media of Kurdish protestors — or "rioters" — holding up the passport of one man born in Iraq's Shiite-majority province Maysan in the far southeastern corner of the country along the border with Iran, claiming he had fled the area but had been among the AAH members closing off the road.

Many local Sunni Arabs and Turkmen officials from the Kirkuk region were also strongly against the handover, however.

On 26 August, the Arab Coalition of Kirkuk released a statement claiming that the "process of imposing law in 2017 had an effective impact on improving the security situation in Kirkuk governorate, which reflected positively on all aspects of life and the promotion of peaceful coexistence in the governorate".

The statement added: "The headquarters of the Joint Operations Command in the Kirkuk governorate represents a symbol of the operation to impose the law, and the evacuation of this headquarters before the partisan authorities judicially prove the ownership of the building sends a negative message".

AFP — A member of the Iraqi security forces mans a checkpoint in the multi-ethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk on September 3, 2023, after curfew was lifted.

It claimed that such a move would raise "fears of destabilising the security situation" and noted that "the building was established on land belonging to the state and has been renovated by the local government" to be used by the JOC.

Distrust and discrimination claims

Members of the Arab community in the Kirkuk region claim Kurdish forces discriminate against them, while the Kurdish population claims that some local Sunni Arabs supported IS and remain distrustful of the community as a whole.

Arshad al-Salihi, former head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front and a Kirkuk-born member of parliament since 2010, claimed on X on Saturday evening that: "While the demonstrations continued in a civilian manner, terrorists from the PKK (outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party) and Iran dragged Kirkuk into turmoil."

He went on to "suggest that the situation of the Joint Operations Command headquarters be left until after the local elections through court proceedings."

In a bid to quell the violence, the authorities seem to have agreed to leave the JOC in the buildings for the moment. It is not yet clear for how long or whether any attempt to implement the PM's decision ahead of the December vote may result in further unrest.

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