Committee of US House of Representatives passes bill to directly arm Kurds

The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved a law permitting sending arms and other supplies directly to Kurdish Peshmerga troops operating in northern Iraq.

At present any deliveries of weapons and supplies must be routed through the central government in Baghdad. Representative Ed Royce, a California Republican, accused the Baghdad central government of routinely delaying delivery of arms to the Kurdish peshmerga forces: "This legislation cuts through the bureaucratic tape to get arms, training and medicine directly to Kurdish forces."

The Obama government does not back the legislation since they claim it is not necessary as weapons are already being sent directly to the Kurds from both the U.S. and other countries. Critics disagree, noting Masrour Barzani, the Kurdish chief of intelligence, told the Wall Street Journal that the Kurds had not received the kind of equipment they want or the amount needed — they also often run short of ammunition. Royce introduced a similar bill last year but it failed to pass. This March he reintroduced it. The bill has 49 co-sponsors including 35 Republicans but also 14 Democrats.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter explained how arms and supplies are sent directly to the Kurds: "The mechanism by which that works is there is customs approval by the Iraqi government ... but there's no delay. A large number of arms and other kinds of equipment have reached the Iraqi Kurds from us and, I think I should say, by 12 other countries."Carter did admit arms to be sent to Sunni forces battling the Islamic State move "much more slowly, frustratingly through the Iraqi government." Note the shipments to the Kurds do not go directly to Kurdistan but first must go through customs at Baghdad. There have been delays at that stage. For example, a Canadian transport plane was held in Baghdad for several days and eventually sent back to Kuwait. It had a shipment of arms and equipment for the Kurds.

The White House is no doubt concerned that it does not anger further the Iraqi central government. Baghdad worries about the increasing Kurdish incursion into territory that formerly was outside of Kurdistan. When the Islamic State routed Iraqi troops, the Kurds occupied Kirkuk and area and declared it part of Kurdistan even though before it had not been part of the nation. More recently, when with the help of U.S. bombing and U.S. special forces, the Kurds retook Sinjar, they also declared it a part of Kurdistan, a position that angers the central government. The Iraqi government has also reacted angrily to Carter's announcement that he is sending more U.S. special forces to Iraq. Just a few days ago Iraq demanded that Turkey withdraw new troops it sent to northern Iraq. The Iraqi government is becoming more and more concerned that not only is its sovereignty being violated but the Kurds are carving out new territory for an autonomous if not independent Iraqi Kurdistan. No doubt some international corporations might be happy to deal with Kurdistan rather than Iraq. Global oil companies could probably sign more lucrative deals for oil exploration and development with Kurdistan compared to Iraq. We can expect the Iraqi government will try to foster even stronger relations with Russia and Iran to counteract U.S. and western influence.

Kurds applaud Russian airstrikes in Syria want weapons from them

Russia in its latest strikes in Syria has targeted several Islamic State positions after earlier being accused of hitting other targets including rebels supported by the United States.

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The United States itself targets other groups than the Islamic State. It considers the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front a terrorist group to be targeted, angering rebel groups who regard it as a key player against Assad in many areas. However, Russia tends to accept the Assad view that all rebels are terrorists and legitimate targets.

The United States has itself created a sharp contrast between its own priorities and those of the rebels and its allies such as Turkey and many Gulf States. The rebels together with these supporters have as their first priority defeating Assad and regime change. The U.S. and its Kurdish allies have a different agenda. The U.S. wants first and foremost to defeat the Islamic State. In order to do this it has supported the Kurds. The Kurds, however, want to extend the territory they hold, consolidate their power and eventually carve out an autonomous or even independent area in northern Syria. They are not interested in fighting Assad unless he attacks them and tries to take back territory they hold. The Kurds publicly welcomed the latest Russian air strikes and asked for weapons. Salih Muslim, co-president of the Democratic Union Party, whose militia the YPG have closely co-ordinated their operations with the United States, said the YPG would fight alongside whoever fights the Islamic State. The fact that the Russians are supporting Assad does not concern the Kurds as it does the U.S. The Kurdish interests are first and foremost consolidating their power and extending their territory rather than fighting Assad. This strategy has been in place since early in the civil war as this article points out: The Syrian Kurds tried to play a neutral role to control as much as territory as possible and benefited from the ongoing civil war in the rest of the country. The Democratic Union Party (PYD) affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) managed to become the dominant actor on the ground due to the influx of experienced PKK fighters that trained Syrian Kurds, grassroots supporters, and organizational networks. Moreover, while Assad and his opponents fought each other for power in the rest of Syria, the PYD managed to cement its control over three Kurdish enclaves in the country’s north.

Syrian security forces withdrew from parts of northern Syria back in the summer of 2012 allowing the Kurds to become the main power and military force in some regions.

Obama made it clear that he is not intending to increase US intervention in Syria even though Russian air strikes show increasing Russian support to prop up Assad:“We’re not going to make Syria into a proxy war between the United States and Russia. That would be bad strategy on our part.This is not some, you know, superpower chess board contest, and anybody who frames it in that way isn’t paying very close attention to what’s been happening on the chess board,”

Insofar as the US supported moderate rebels and encouraged its allies to support other rebels while Russia supports Assad it is a proxy war. What has changed is that the US now has a priority of defeating the Islamic State. The US now has some interests that converge with those of Russia which supports Assad and the Kurds whose priority is certainly not attacking Assad.

The Syrian situation is to a considerable degree a super-power chess board. The Kurds have been paying close attention to what is happening. The Kurds YPG and the US coordinated air strikes with ground action to break the siege of the city of Kobani. With the help of the US air cover the Kurds are estimated to have seized 6,800 square miles of territory in northern Syria in recent months.

Turkey has noticed what is happening on the chessboard as well. Under US pressure it finally joined the battle against the Islamic State but also at the same time attacked the Kurdish PKK in northern Iraq, violating a peace treaty and starting a campaign that threatens to create a civil war in parts of Turkey where the Kurds are a majority. Turkish president Erdogan is hoping to lead his party to a majority in upcoming elections. He is doing so by attacking the Kurds and fanning nationalist sentiment. While nationalist sentiment is rising so is the level of violence in Turkey and there is no guarantee that his strategy will even work. Obama may be right in that the conflict in Syria is not just a super-power chess game. It is a much more complicated conflict with many different external and internal players with vastly different agendas.

US has spent $2.7 billion already in fight against the Islamic State

Since bombings against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq began last August, the US has spent more than $2.7 billion The Pentagon estimates that the average daily expenditure at present is above $9 million.

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This is the first time detailed breakdown of costs have been given. In September last year estimates of what total costs might be were given. These were much higher but then the bombings and fight against the Islamic State is far from over.

Since much of the effort against the Islamic State involves bombing and air reconnaissance, it is hardly surprising that two thirds of the cost, or $1.8 billion, was spent by the U.S. Air Force. Combat, reconnaissance, and other flights are costing more than $5 million each day. In a rare breakdown of costs, the report indicates that secret special forces operations had cost more than $200 million since last August. These details were revealed just as the US Congress rejected legislation that would have banned any spending on combat operations before a new war pøwers bill was passed.

Other costs from last August include $438 million for the Navy, and $274 million for the Army, which has trainers and special forces troops on the ground. There was also $16 million for military pay; $646 million for munitions; and $21 million for intelligence and surveillance operations. The U.S. will also be faced with the task of replacing equipment and munitions seized by the Islamic State in their original offensive. The retreating Iraqi forces often left munitions and equipment at their abandoned bases. The same situation repeated itself during the recent capture of the city of Ramadi by the Islamic State. The military-industrial complex prospers through this creative destruction. They sell the U.S. government the planes and bombs that destroy the munitions and equipment now in possession of the Islamic State, which formerly was provided by U.S. industry to the Iraqi government. Now the Iraqi forces will need to be resupplied.

Two recent events may ensure that there is increased U.S. spending on the fight against the Islamic State. Obama has announced that he will be sending up to 450 more US troops to Iraq. The US is also considering sending arms directly to Sunni and Kurdish forces in Iraq. There are other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom and a number of Arab states who have joined the U.S. in the fight against the Islamic State. If their costs were included the total spent on the fight against the Islamic State would be much higher. The appended video is from March of this year.

US bill would allow sending arms direct to Kurds and Sunni tribes bypassing Iraqi government

Originally the bill recognized the Kurds and Sunni tribal forces as "countries" so that arms could be sent directly to those groups, and not requiring they go through the central Iraqi government.

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However, the US House Armed Services Committee removed that description in the bill but still took the position that some of the aid to Iraq should go directly to Kurdish forces and Sunni tribes fighting the Islamic State in Iraq. The bill was also amended to remove a section that would send the aid only on condition that the central government distance itself from certain Shia militias fighting alongside the Iraqi troops. The committee voted 60 to 2 to send the bill to the House for consideration in May. A draft bill would authorize aid of $715 million for the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq called Operation Inherent Resolve. One quarter of those funds are stipulated to be directly provided to Kurdish and Sunni forces. The bill goes even further:The bill stipulates that US support will depend on the Iraqi government’s actions in reintegrating minorities in Iraq and on building political reconciliations. If those conditions are not met, the monetary allocations for Kurdish and Sunni forces will go up to 60 percent.

The Iraqi Ministry of Defense immediately denounced the proposal. Defense Minister, Khalid Al-Obeidi, told Rudaw:

We will reject the arming of the Peshmerga directly by the US. Arming the Peshmerga, Sunnis and Shiites must be conducted by the central government, not by the US.The bill was scheduled to be debated and voted on Thursday April 30. Up to now, the practice has been to funnel all weapons provided by the U.S. through the central government.

The bill has brought a sharp rebuke from Moqtada al-Sadr the anti-U.S. cleric and Iraqi nationalist. He had withdrawn from politics early last year. He has been uneasy about the U.S. return to Iraq but also fiercely opposes the Islamic State. He has also spoken out against Shiite revenge actions against Sunnis in areas that have been retaken from the Islamic State. Of the present bill Sadr warned:“In the event of approving this bill by the US Congress, we will find ourselves obliged to unfreeze the military wing and start targeting American interests in Iraq – even abroad."

Sadr's militia was disbanded after the US occupation of Iraq ended. US law obliges military aid to a friendly country to be made through the government. Both al-Sadr and President Barack Obama find themselves on the same side both opposed to direct funding of the Kurds or Sunni groups.

Kurds in Syria inspired by US anarchist Murray Bookchin

You would never know from most mainstream news reports that the Kurds defending the Syrian border city of Kobane from the Islamic Front advance are part of the Kurdistan Worker's party or PKK widely regarded as a terrorist organization.


The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by NATO, the United States and the European Union among others.Until recently the PKK carried out a Maoist type people's struggle against the Turkish government. It had guerrilla bases in northern Iraq. The conflict between the PKK and Turkey resulted in over 40,000 deaths.
On 21 March 2013, Abdullah Öcalan, the PKK leader, from his jail in Turkey declared a ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish state. Ocalan's statement read:"Let guns be silenced and politics dominate... a new door is being opened from the process of armed conflict to democratization and democratic politics. It's not the end. It's the start of a new era." Murat Karayilan the functional leader of the PKK promised to implement the ceasefire and claimed that the PKK was as ready for peace as war. Turkish president Recep Erdogan welcomed the statement. Ocalan had been arrested in 1999 in Nairobi, Kenya, by the CIA and Turkish authorities and taken to Turkey where he was sentenced to death. The sentence was later changed to life imprisonment. For years he was held as the sole prisoner on an island. After international observers complained about the conditions of his incarceration, several other PKK prisoners were sent to the island and he is allowed to visit them from time to time.
His trial and conviction have been the subject of controversy: In 2005, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Turkey had violated articles 3, 5 and 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights by granting Öcalan no effective remedy to appeal his arrest and sentencing him to death without a fair trial.[56] Öcalan's request for a retrial was refused by Turkish court.[57] While in jail Ocalan read widely and wrote several books. He radically changed his ideology after reading several western social theorists.
His earlier ideology was a version of Marxism and the PKK had adopted a Maoist-type people's struggle for some time. Murray Bookchin the US libertarian anarchist and environmentalist was one of the strongest influences upon Ocalan causing him to reject Marxism altogether as Bookchin had also done:Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.
 As an article in the Guardian points out, the Kurds are attempting to apply Bookchin's model of libertarian municipalism. There are to be numerous self-governing municipalities based upon principles of direct democracy: ".. the Kurdish struggle could become a model for a wordwide movement towards genuine democracy, co-operative economy, and the gradual dissolution of the bureaucratic nation-state." The author, David Graeber, notes that throughout Rojava popular assemblies have been created. These groups are chosen so as to reflect ethnic balance and thus lessen tension between varied religious and ethnic groups: Popular assemblies have been created as the ultimate decision-making bodies, councils selected with careful ethnic balance (in each municipality, for instance, the top three officers have to include one Kurd, one Arab and one Assyrian or Armenian Christian, and at least one of the three has to be a woman), there are women’s and youth councils,
 Western media howl that Turkish tanks are right there on the border and could easily cross over into Kobane and help rout the Islamic State. Yet, they do not move. This should hardly be surprising. The Turks do not want to empower the PKK a group they battled with for ages. Nor do they want to provoke the Islamic State to launch reprisal attacks into Turkish territory. Not only that but the Kurds have more or less an undeclared truce with Assad. They are interested in the security and development of the territory they occupy and in which they are the majority. They are not particularly interested in overthrowing Assad. This view is anathema both to Turkey and other Syrian rebels. Ironically, the Kurds also do not want Turkey to intervene. What they want is help in the way of arms. They protest because Turkey is preventing Kurds from crossing into Syria to help their compatriots. The last thing they want is to have their territory invaded by the Turkish military.

Islamic State has many US weapons including some that were sent to Syrian moderate rebels

Many weapons used by the Islamic State were seized as they captured bases in Iraq from Iraqi forces. However, the group also has US weapons that appear to have been given originally to moderate Syrian rebels linked to the Free Syrian Army.
  Obama has always been hesitant to send many weapons to the rebels of the Free Syrian Army fearing that they might end up in the hands of militants. The western-supported rebels have constantly complained they are not as well-armed as more militant groups. However, some US weapons provided to moderate rebels have ended up in the hands of the Islamic State in any event.
Some Islamic State US weapons may have been obtained when they took over territory controlled by the FSA but some also could have been US weapons provided by Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Front. The Islamic State has been in constant conflict with them as well.
 Researchers with a group called Conflictarm embedded with Kurdish forces both in Syria and Iraq during a ten day period in July were allowed to catalog Islamic State weapons captured after clashes. Not surprisingly the weapons were manufactured in a number of countries: Along with the anti-tank weapons, manufactured in the former Yugoslavia, researchers documented a handful of U.S. M16A4 rifles, two Chinese Type 80 machine guns, a Croatian sniper rifle, a 9mm Glock pistol and various Soviet-era small arms. The Islamic State has also captured some territory and won out in some battles with Assad forces where it captured Soviet small arms. Some of these items could have been bought on the black market. It is also quite possible that some of the middle men ferrying weapons from the west and Gulf States to rebel groups are pocketing extra money by selling some of them to radical groups such as ISIS.
 Researchers found that anti-tank weapons used by the Islamic State had previously been sent to Syrian rebels. A number of weapons had serial numbers welded over in an attempt to foil any attempts to trace them back to their source. This may indicate the weapons came through a third party trying to mask the source of the weapons. Syria rebel factions who receive US arms have denied that they have provided any arms to ISIS. They insist that the overwhelming majority of the US aid is used by the Free Syrian Army to fight Assad forces. This may very well be true, but the FSA is an umbrella group and probably contains some not above lining their own pockets by selling some of the US arms to the highest bidder.
 Obama is asking the US Congress to greatly increase funding to supply the rebels with more arms and other support. He intends to use the rebels as proxy forces to attack the Islamic State as Kurdish peshmerga and Iraq security forces are being used in Iraq. In both countries any Islamic State successes will gain them more US weapons:
According to one White House aide, the president is seeking more aid for the rebels so they could be the ground troops in place to support potential U.S. airstrikes against ISIS. The Obama administration already is pursuing a similar strategy in Iraq, where U.S. airstrikes are backed by Iraqi security forces on the ground -- as opposed to U.S. ground troops
 In another issue involving moderate Syrian rebels, a spokesperson for the family of beheaded journalist Steven Sotloff claims that he was actually sold by them to the Islamic State or ISIS: Sotloff family spokesman Barak Barfi, a foreign policy research fellow at the New American Foundation, made the startling claim in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper.“We believe that these so-called moderate rebels that people want our administration to support, one of them sold him probably for something between $25,000 and $50,000 to ISIS and that was the reason he was captured.".

Turkish sociologist sentenced to life for bombing that experts say was a gas leak accident

Sociologist Pinar Selek has been sentenced to life imprisonment for a 1998 bombing in Istanbul, even though she had been acquitted three times previously and experts say that there was no bombing but the explosion was an accident caused by a gas leak.

Selek said she was shocked by the verdict when the court convicted her of a supposed bombing in Istanbul's Spice Bazaar in 1998, after being found not guilty of the crime 3 times already:

“I am shocked by the verdict; it is the first time the court found me guilty. I have been acquitted three times before. This is a first, tomorrow I will have a press meeting.I know that people won't let me be sacrificed.I want my acquittal back. It is so hard to express what I feel about this scandalous legal situation. It is like asking a woman how she feels after she was subjected to violence but I can tell you how I remain standing after 15 years. There is incredible solidarity with me."

Selek has been living in Strasbourg, France, where she is studying. Along with 30 NGOs and political party representatives from France, human rights activists from Germany, Italy, and Austria attended the court hearing in Istanbul yesterday.

Nearly 150 people held a protest before the trial. Another suspect was also sentenced to life imprisonment. Selek's problems began in 1998 when she was detained while studying the Kurdish issue in Turkey. She refused to name people she had interviewed during her research. She claims to have been tortured while in prison and her research material was confiscated. She was only released after two and a half years in prison.

The chief judge this time ruled that Selek should be released but all other judges found her guilty and imposed the life sentence. From the very first, explosives experts have claimed that there was no bombing at all but that the explosion was caused by a gas leak. A June 2000 report by experts at Istanbul University said:

“The prosecutor’s report is not scientific, it is written with an intention to mislead the court. Nitrocellulose can be found in several substances, but it is not proof of the presence of a bomb.”

Another report by a medical faculty also ruled out a bomb explosion saying that the prosecutors' report was unscientific:

“None of the evidence matches with injuries inflicted by the explosion of a bomb.”

Three experts assigned by the court also declared the explosion was definitely due to a gas leak, not because of a bomb. You would think that would be an end to the matter.

However, after two further acquittals Selek's case was brought before the court again. The judges included a judge who had earlier resisted the acquittal verdict and another who had appealed that verdict. The court was obviously stacked against Selek. Defense objections to the judges on the grounds they were not objective were dismissed.

This trial was a travesty of justice. There should be more publicity to help this brave woman escape the fate rigged up for her by Turkish authorities. The enclosed video was posted in 2011. The noise on the video stops a minute or so from the start. There are many more videos on You Tube but they seem to be all in Turkish.

Kurds in northern Syria fight off jihadist attacks across Turkish border

In the city of Ras al-Ain in the Kurdish area of northern Syria, fighting rages between several radical groups who crossed the border from Turkey and joined battle against Kurdish militia defending the city.

In order to conserve his military power, Assad withdrew his troops from Kurdish areas of Syria allowing the Kurds to be more or less autonomous. The Kurds themselves are divided on whether to support or fight against the Assad regime and are staying more or less neutral while defending control of the area they occupy.

Attacks on Ras al-Ain have caused many residents to flee the city. The jihadists were from the Al-Nusra Front and Ghuraba al-Sham. A resident said that:

"the fighting became more intense in the evening after Kurdish fighters received reinforcements to try to stop the fiercest rebel assault ever since insurgents first arrived in the city"

Al-Nusra Front is listed by the US as a terrorist organization a designation that is opposed by Syrian rebels since the group are active and effective fighters against Assad.

A Kurdish activist, living in Ras al-Kain said that the jihadists crossed the nearby Turkish border with three tanks and entered the city. He claimed the Kurdish militia seized one tank.The activist noted:

“The advancing rebels did not use the tanks to fight the regime. Instead, they used them to shell Ras al-Ain."

One wonders how jihadists are able to get tanks in Turkey without the Turkish government being aware of what is happening.

Kurdish analysts suspect that Turkey may be using the jihadists to wage their own battle against Kurds. Many worry about the consequences of a continuing battle between Kurds and jihadists. Prominent Kurdish journalist and activist Massoud Akko said:

“Should the fight morph into a struggle between Kurds and Arabs... Syria and the revolt [against Assad] are both in real danger.”

Opposition fails to gain votes to unseat Iraqi Prime Minister

The political crisis in Iraq will continue. Nouri Al Maliki the prime minister has faced growing opposition from Kurdish and Sunni parties. However, he also faces opposition within Shia groups as well particularly from the Al Sadr group. The opposition seems united in finding that Al Maliki is consolidating power and shutting out any opposition.

However the president Jalal Talabani a Kurd supports the prime minister. In turn both have the support of Iran and perhaps surprisingly the U.S as well. No doubt both feel that at least Al Maliki provides a degree of stability in the country. Opponents say that they will continue their struggle to unseat al-Maliki in spite of their setback. There are questions about Talabani's counting of the vote that fell short of the mark.

Opponents say that they sent Talabani a letter that had pledges from 176 representatives in the 325 member parliament saying they would vote for the recall of al-Maliki. This was 12 more than needed for a majority. When Talabani reported back he said there were only 160 valid signatures and that 13 of the signers had told him that they were withdrawing or suspending their signatures. One wonders what prompted the representatives to change their mind; also, the numbers add up only to 173 not 176. This sort of thing seems symptomatic of the state of Iraqi politics.

Meanwhile sectarian attacks continue in Iraq with Al Qaeda seeming to make a comeback. For more see this article.

In Mosul Kurds driven out by Arabs

This is just one more part of the mosaic of conflicts that amount to a virtual civil war in Iraq. It seems that neither the US nor so far local authorities are able to do much to stop it.

In North Iraq, Sunni Arabs Drive Out Kurds
By EDWARD WONG
Published: May 30, 2007
MOSUL, Iraq — The letter tossed into Mustafa Abu Bakr Muhammad’s front yard got right to the point.

“You will be killed,” it read, for collaborating with the Kurdish militias. Then came the bullet through a window at night.

A cousin had already been gunned down. So Mr. Muhammad and three generations of his family joined tens of thousands of other Kurds who have fled growing ethnic violence by Sunni Arab insurgents here and moved east, to the safety of Iraqi Kurdistan.

“We had our home in Mosul and it was good there, but things are now very bad between Arabs and Kurds,” said Mr. Muhammad, 70, standing outside his new, scorpion-infested cinderblock house in the nearby town of Khabat.

While the American military is trying to tamp down the vicious fighting between rival Arab sects in Baghdad, conflict between Arabs and Kurds is intensifying here, adding another dimension to Iraq’s civil war. Sunni Arab militants, reinforced by insurgents fleeing the new security plan in Baghdad, are trying to rid Mosul of its Kurdish population through violence and intimidation, Kurdish officials said.

Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city, with a population of 1.8 million, straddles the Tigris River on a grassy, windswept plain in the country’s north. It was recently estimated to be about a quarter Kurdish, but Sunni Arabs have already driven out at least 70,000 Kurds and virtually erased the Kurdish presence from the city’s western half, said Khasro Goran, the deputy governor of surrounding Nineveh Province and a Kurd.

The militants “view this as a Sunni-dominated town, and they view the Kurds as encroaching on Mosul,” said Col. Stephen Twitty, commander of the Fourth Brigade, First Cavalry Division, which is deployed in Nineveh. Some Kurdish and Christian enclaves remain on the east side, though their numbers are dwindling. Kurdish officials say the flight has accelerated in recent months, contributing to the wider ethnic and religious partitioning that is taking place all over Iraq.

Nineveh is Iraq’s most diverse province, with a dizzying array of ethnic and religious groups woven into an area about the size of Maryland. For centuries, Arabs, Kurds, Christians, Turkmens, Yezidis and Shabaks lived side by side in these verdant hills, going to the same schools, bartering in the same markets, even intermarrying on occasion.

But what took generations to build is starting to unravel in the shadow of the Sunni Arab insurgency, which is tapping into several wells of ethnic resentment.

Already embittered at the toppling of the Sunni Arab government of Saddam Hussein, insurgents here have been further enraged by their current political disenfranchisement, a result of their boycotting the 2005 elections. The main Kurdish coalition now holds 31 of 41 seats on the provincial council and all the top executive positions, even though Kurds make up only 35 percent of the province. Most Kurds are of the Sunni sect, but they have little in common with the Arabs.

Sunni Arabs have asked for new provincial elections and are growing frustrated that the Shiite- and Kurdish-dominated national government seems to be ignoring their requests.

“We demanded elections a year ago, but it never happened,” said Muhammad Shakir, the local leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the province’s most prominent Sunni Arab political group. “The current council does not represent the governorate.”

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Some officials in the national government say conditions will not permit provincial elections until next year.

Just as worrisome for the Arabs is a growing push by the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan to annex large swaths of eastern and northern Nineveh. A contentious measure in the Constitution gives the regional Kurdish government the right to take the land by the end of 2007 through a popular referendum.

The parts of the province that Iraqi Kurdistan wants are called the “disputed territories” along its border, areas that were historically Kurdish until Saddam Hussein moved in Arabs and forced out half a million Kurds to strengthen Arab control, Kurdish officials say.

Mr. Goran, the deputy governor, said six of Nineveh’s nine districts — with at least 30 percent of the province’s 2.7 million people — could vote to join Iraqi Kurdistan. Before the vote is held, however, the Iraqi government must find a way to move out the Arab settlers and move back the original Kurdish residents. Some of this relocation has already taken place, but many more original residents still need to return, Mr. Goran said.

If the vote is put off, he said, violence will soar even further between Kurds and Arabs as each group struggles for the land. “This is a good time to solve the problem,” he said, “because if not, we will open another front in the north between Kurds and Arabs.”

To ensure control of the lands, the Kurdish parties are encouraging settlers to move to eastern Nineveh, just as they have been doing in disputed areas in Diyala Province and around the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Kurdish militias have also been operating in Nineveh and the streets of Mosul, stoking Sunni Arab fears of Kurdish domination, Colonel Twitty said.

The violence here against the Kurds and other minorities is vicious and unrelenting, Kurdish and American officials say. More than 1,000 Kurdish civilians have recently been killed in Mosul, and at least two or three are gunned down each day now, Mr. Goran said. One well-known Kurdish singer was murdered because he had the same last name as Mr. Goran.

“Everyone gets threats or can feel threatened here,” said James Knight, the head of the State Department’s provincial reconstruction team in Nineveh. “The intimidation of people is one of the dramatic ongoing problems we have.”

Mr. Knight said 70,000 was a reasonable estimate for the number of people who have fled Mosul, but he did not know how many were Kurds.

[On May 13, in the mostly Kurdish district of Makhmur, a suicide truck bomber rammed into the local headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, killing at least 50 people and wounding at least 115. On May 9, a truck bomb exploded in front of Kurdish government offices in Erbil, the relatively secure capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, killing at least 19 and wounding at least 70.]

While the Americans are fighting the Sunni Arab insurgency, they are also vigorously supporting what they say are legitimate Sunni Arab demands, like the call for provincial elections. The Arabs and Kurds have to reach a power-sharing arrangement, American officials say.

But the surge in ethnic violence has sharpened the animosity of Kurds toward Arabs, and few Kurds are ready to forgive the atrocities committed by Mr. Hussein’s Sunni Arab government.

“I compare the Sunni Arabs to Bosnian Serbs: their behavior, their way of thinking, their way of acting,” Mr. Goran said in an interview at the fortified government center downtown. “They are for killings, they are for mass graves. Not all of them, but the majority of them.”

So far, Kurdish militias have refrained from engaging in the kind of wide-scale reprisals against Sunni Arabs that Shiite militias have carried out in Baghdad. But the Kurds are capable, Mr. Goran warned.

“We can kill every day 50 Arabs in the streets,” Mr. Goran said with a quick smile. “Every day, everywhere, in Mosul and outside of Mosul. But we don’t do that, because we know they want us to do that.”

The insurgency here is a caldron of prominent Sunni Arab groups that include Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Ansar al-Sunna. The city was a recruitment base for commanders of the old Iraqi Army, and former officers are now among the leaders of the local guerrilla movement.

During a November 2004 uprising, much of the Mosul police force defected to the insurgency, and Mr. Goran said he suspects that a third to half of the existing police force still aids or sympathizes with the insurgency. After the execution of Saddam Hussein in December, he said, some policemen put Mr. Hussein’s picture in their cars. A new police chief who is a Sunni Arab, Maj. Gen. Wathiq Muhammad al-Hamdani, is trying to clean house, he said.

There are some positive signs, American commanders say. As in Anbar Province, some Sunni militants are chafing at the Islamist agenda of Al Qaeda, said Lt. Col. Eric Welsh, leader of the Second Battalion, Seventh Cavalry, the single American combat battalion in Mosul.

And one of the two, mostly Kurdish, Iraqi Army divisions in Nineveh has been working well under a respected Sunni Arab general, Brig. Gen. Moutaa Jassim Habeeb, Mr. Goran said. But conservative Sunni Arab politicians in Baghdad are pushing to replace him with a hard-line commander, Mr. Goran added.

If that happens, he said, “no Kurdish soldier will remain in the division.”

Despite their heavy presence in the army, Kurdish soldiers have been unable to end the violence that is driving so many Kurds from Mosul.

Sanaa Saadan and her husband are known as “Mosulis.” They were born and raised there, but they could be the last in their families to lay claim to that title.

Last year, Ms. Saadan and her husband moved with their three sons into the home of her older sister in Khabat, 30 miles to the east. The two said they knew at least seven Kurds who had been murdered in Mosul.

Khabat, just inside Iraqi Kurdistan, has become a place of refuge. Rents have skyrocketed, said the mayor, Rizgar Mustafa Muhammad. At least 1,300 families have moved there from Mosul. More than 120 came in April alone, the most of any month, he said. Soon, he said, tent camps will be needed.

“We were unhappy to leave Mosul,” said Ms. Saadan, 28, as she watched over her youngest son in his crib. Her husband, a wedding singer, finds work scarce in Iraqi Kurdistan. Their two oldest sons had a tough time adjusting to school lessons in Kurdish rather than Arabic.

The highway from Khabat to Mosul runs past Ms. Saadan’s home and through a checkpoint a mile to the west, on a concrete bridge spanning a river that marks the border with Nineveh. Kurdish soldiers check the identification cards of people driving in. They say Kurds arrive regularly in cars packed with furniture and household goods.

“If we’re ordered to go protect residents of Mosul, we’ll do it,” said the commander, Maj. Ghafour Ahmed Hussein.

He stared out at the green hills to the west. Beyond lay the city and its newly emptied houses.


Yerevan Adham contributed from Erbil, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Mosul.

Why Iraqis cannot agree on Oil Law

This leaves out some of the issues. It does not even mention production sharing agreements although it does note that some worry about control of Iraqi oil by foreign companies. This is obviously written in such a way as to completely minimize the role of foreign interests in drafting the law. It does give some of the reasons why the Kurds and Sunnis object to the law. Of course the oil union's disagreement is simply ignored. Typical of much stuff written for western consumption.


Why Iraqis Cannot Agree on an Oil Law

Author:
Lionel Beehner, Staff Writer

May 9, 2007
o Introduction
o What is contained in the draft oil bill?
o Why has it been so difficult to draft an oil law?
o What are the main points of contention?
o How much oil does Iraq have?
o Why has oil production stalled?
o What is the likelihood of the oil law passing parliament soon?
Introduction

Disagreements over oil and revenue sharing threaten to unravel hopes for a political breakthrough and national reconciliation in Iraq. A draft oil law has drawn criticisms from Iraq’s Sunnis, who prefer a stronger role for the central government, and from Kurds, who prefer a stronger role for the regional authorities. The majority Shiites have sought to mollify the Sunnis by keeping control of Iraq’s oil sector in Baghdad, not the provinces. The role of outside investors, as well as the classification of old versus new oil fields, also divides Iraqi politicians. Oil, of course, is the country’s most vital resource, accounting for 95 percent of government revenue. Yet output has fallen well short of Baghdad’s production targets, mostly due to corruption, poor security, and lack of investment.
What is contained in the draft oil bill?

The bill drafted in February gives overall planning responsibilities to the federal oil and gas council and the Iraq National Oil Company (INOC), a state-run company to be established once the bill is passed. Representatives from regional authorities can be part of the council and sit on INOC’s board. The bill also divvies up revenue from both existing and future oil fields based on regional population. However, four annexes introduced in recent weeks by the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, a Shiite, cede greater control of management of current oil fields and existing contracts to INOC.

The Kurds argue these annexes were drafted without their input and violate the constitution, which states that Baghdad, together with regional authorities, will determine the management of untapped fields. According to the annexes, 93 percent of Iraq’s proven petroleum reserves will be under the purview of INOC, leaving just 7 percent to regional authorities. “Kurdish dissatisfaction stems from its objection to a state-run, relatively unaccountable oil company that’s given almost all of Iraq’s proven reserves,” says Jonathan Morrow, legal adviser to the Kurdistan Regional Government’s natural resources minister. The draft bill is supposed to be signed into law no later than May 31, but experts doubt the Iraqi government will meet that deadline. “Unless these annexes that describe the distribution of revenue and role of ministry of oil and INOC are resolved, the hydrocarbon law in and of itself will not change anything,” says Frank Verrastro, director of the energy program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Why has it been so difficult to draft an oil law?

Iraq’s Kurds and Sunni Arabs oppose the draft law for different reasons. The Kurds say it cedes too much control to Baghdad’s oil ministry and INOC. The Kurds want more regional autonomy to develop and pocket the revenues from existing and new fields on their territory, as well as those near the northern city of Kirkuk, which is under de facto Kurdish control. Moreover, they prefer greater authority to bypass Baghdad and sign contracts with foreign companies. The Sunnis, who reside mainly in regions lacking in major oil reserves, favor a hydrocarbon law that distributes revenue more evenly and according to need. Tariq Shafiq, one of the draft oil law’s principal authors, told United Press International the regions don’t have the “necessary institutions” or “required expertise” to manage their oil fields without the assistance of the central government and will become overly reliant on foreign companies.
What are the main points of contention?
o Revenue sharing. The precise distribution of revenues from Iraq’s oil production remains undecided and, according to Morrow, there has been “not one single negotiation for revenue sharing in Iraq.” The constitution is vague on the subject; Article 111 states simply that “oil and gas are the ownership of all the people of Iraq,” while Article 112 calls for a distribution of revenues “in a fair manner in proportion to the population,” taking into account regions deprived by Saddam’s regime that would be first in line for payments.
o The classification of new versus old oil fields. Kurds maintain that under the Iraqi constitution new production will be under the control of regional authorities. But Verrastro says the definition of “new” varies from region to region. Kurds, he says, would classify a new well in an old field as “new,” as well as any incremental exploration of existing fields.
o The role of foreign companies. Iraqis disagree over whether to allow foreign companies to develop their country’s untapped oil fields. Sunnis in particular are worried it would erode Iraqi sovereignty and redistribute oil revenues away from Iraqis and into foreign hands. But many experts say outside investors are needed to stimulate development of Iraq’s dilapidated oil infrastructure. “There’s a question if the [Iraq National Oil] Company has enough heft without foreign help,” Verrastro says.
How much oil does Iraq have?

Iraq's proven oil reserves are estimated to be around 115 billion barrels, making them the world’s third largest after Saudi Arabia’s and Canada’s. The bulk of Iraq’s known oil reserves lie primarily in the Kurdish-controlled north and Shiite-controlled south around Basra. But because of sanctions, neglect under Saddam, and lack of investment, Verrastro reckons less than 20 percent of the country has been fully explored. He estimates undiscovered reserves could be anywhere from 155 billion to over 230 billion barrels. “Iraq’s western desert” (PDF)—which is Sunni controlled—“is considered to be highly prolific but has yet to be explored,” writes Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. The bulk of Iraq’s known reserves lie around Basra in the south and Kirkuk in the north.
Why has oil production stalled?

In the run-up to the April 2003 war in Iraq, the Bush administration predicted that within five years Iraq would be producing 6 billion barrels of oil per day, more than enough to pay for its reconstruction. Verrastro says the White House failed to account for the devastated state of Iraq’s pumps and pipes, due to years of neglect, mismanagement, and financial stress caused by sanctions. He estimates that Iraqi oil production, currently around 2 million barrels per day, will not reach 4 million barrels per day until 2010. Production shortages over the past few years are mostly due to poor maintenance, corruption within the oil ministry, and a lack of security that has fueled smuggling and sabotage.

There has been virtually no development of new fields since the April 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to Jaffe. Many experts say the problem dates back to the onset of severe UN sanctions in 1991. Even during the oil-for-food program, which started in the late 1990s, Iraq’s oil infrastructure was badly neglected. The Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index estimates about four hundred insurgent attacks have targeted Iraqi oil infrastructure since 2003.

Another problem is the flight of trained technicians needed for Iraq’s oil industry. Jaffe points to “a looming gap in technical and managerial expertise,” combined with the “intimidation of key experts.” Many of the industry’s most capable technocrats under Saddam either fled Iraq or are of retirement age, says Verrastro.
What is the likelihood of the oil law passing parliament soon?

It depends on whether Iraq’s various factions are willing to make difficult political compromises. “I’m less confident now,” says Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert with the Congressional Research Service. “The Kurds have always had problems with the law but what I’m worried about really is the Sunni threat to pull out of the parliament entirely.” Most experts believe the Iraqis will not meet the May 31 ultimatum. “We’ve seen deadlines pass before so I don’t see what’s so magical about May 31,” says Verrastro. Morrow says it is possible for the oil bill to be passed without the annexes (which are voted on as a bloc, not individually) by summer, thus requiring more rounds of talks before parliament signs off on the revenue-sharing bill and other provisions. U.S. officials have made an oil law one of their main benchmarks to gauge political progress in Iraq.
*

Conflict between Turkey and Iraqi Kurdistan

This conflict threatens to break out into violence from time to time and the US unwillingness to tackle rebels in northern Iraq is causing friction between the US and Turkey.

PM Erdogan grows furious, castigates Barzani


The New Anatolian with AP / Ankara

10 April 2007


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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday retaliated to blunt remarks of an Iraqi Kurdish leader warning Iraqi Kurds against interfering in Turkey's southeast.

"The price for them will be very high," said Erdogan challenging the words by Iraqi Kurdish regional administration leader Massoud Barzani, who said Iraqi Kurds would retaliate to any Turkish interference in northern Iraq by stirring up trouble in Turkey's southeast.

"He's out of place. He'll be crushed under his words," Erdogan said. "Northern Iraq, which is a neighbor, is making a serious mistake: the price for them will be very high," he warned.

The verbal sparring was set off by Barzani over the weekend when he said in an interview with al-Arabiyah television that Iraqi Kurds could "interfere" in Kurdish-majority Turkish cities if Ankara interfered in northern Iraq.

A pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP) official, party's Diyarbakir office head Hilmi Aydogdu, was arrested due to remarks resembling that of Barzani. He was then released by court.

Barzani previously told in another interview that the Kurds in Turkey should draw their own path. The change in his remarks comes amid raising tension due to looming presidential and general elections which has almost turned into a hidden fight between the allegedly political Islamist government and the secular sections of the society.

Barzani's remark also touched an extremely sensitive nerve in Turkey, where more than 37,000 people have been killed in fighting between Turkish security forces and the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) since 1984, most of them in the southeastern region bordering Iraq.

Over the weekend, nine security officers were dead either in clashes or due to from landmines in the eastern and southeastern parts of the country, despite an ongoing unilateral ceasefire announced by the PKK. Turkey refused the ceasefire but the DTP, claimed to be a mouthpiece of Abdullah Ocalan, inmate leader of the terror group, has been using the PKK's decision as a tool against the government to lay ground for further political representation of Kurdish masses in Turkey.

Turkey fears that any moves toward greater independence for Kurds in northern Iraq could incite Turkey's own estimated 14 million Kurds to outright rebellion.

The political rhetoric adopted by Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party focusing on promoting all embracing citizenship notion over ethnic emphasis is seen a tool to pass through this time of ambiguity regarding the stability near its eastern border.

Turkey is also especially concerned about Barzani's bid to incorporate the oil-rich northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk into his semiautonomous region, fearing that Iraqi Kurds will use the city's oil revenues to fund a bid for independence.

Last week, the Iraqi government decided to implement a constitutional requirement to determine the status of Kirkuk - which is disputed among several different ethnic groups - by the end of the year. The plan is expected to turn Kirkuk and its vast oil reserves over to Kurdish control, a step rejected by many of Iraq's Arabs and its Turkmen - ethnic Turks who are strongly backed by Ankara.

Some in Turkey have hinted at military action to prevent the Kurds from gaining control of Kirkuk. Particularly, cross-border operation was seriously discussed during the second half of last year in political back corridors and Parliament gathered for a close vote in order to authorize the AK Party government for that purpose.

Barzani's remarks made front page news and drew rage in Turkey, with opposition parties criticizing the government for not responding harshly to the Kurdish leader's threat.

"We're a state whose history traces back to centuries. Our history as a state includes not only northern Iraq but also Baghdad," Erdogan challenged.

Also the foreign minister of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, expressed his uneasiness about the remarks but only said, "All will see our response."

At a press conference in Parliament, AK Party's deputy group leader Irfan Gunduz branded the remarks provocative saying he, speaking on behalf of his party, condemns Barzani's statement which came in a time when Turkey feels great sorrow due to fallen soldiers.

He also warned Iraqi Kurds saying Barzani should be capable of calculating what such remarks would cost him, both during the U.S. forces are there and after the left Iraq, and cited the consequences of irresponsible moves of Saddam Hussein.

He called Barzani's words an erroneous response to the helping hand of Turkey and added that Turkey is powerful enough to silence all threats to its security and future. "No one should try Turkey's patience," he added.

Opposition rebukes govt over remarks

The remarks also surfaced fierce reaction among the political arena in Turkey with several party leaders condemned Barzani and called on the government to employ a harder line against the regional Kurdish administration.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy group leader Haluk Koc accused Barzani of behaving arrogantly and blamed the U.S. for its support to the regional administration.

"We have to see who encourages Barzani. Who give landmines to the PKK? Are they product of the U.S.? I have to ask the prime minister, who is on a show in the Black Sea while we're grieving here [due to fallen soldiers], the foreign minister, who welcome all questions with a smile, and the interior minister, why do you remain silent? Is not 10 deaths enough to talk?" Koc concluded.

Social Democrat People's Party (SHP) leader Murat Karayalcin, in a written statement, said that the response of the people, beginning with Kurdish origin Turkish citizens, should be appropriately sharp.

True Path Party (DYP) leader Mehmet Agar also criticized the government for what he branded inaptitude and apathy in particular regarding the remarks of Barzani and in general foreign policy issues.

"His boldness is result of lack of determination of Turkey's government," said Agar referring to Barzani but added that no one should try Turkey's force. Turkey has the biggest armed forces in the region, he added.

Gul asks US to warn Barzani

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul telephoned U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Saturday saying that he was very disturbed by Barzani's comments, reports said on Monday.

Gul reportedly asked Rice to ensure that Barzani does not again make such statements, which he described as being a threat to the territorial integrity of Turkey.

Turkey's Special Iraq Envoy Oguz Celikkol has also gone to the U.S. over the weekend to express Turkey's uneasiness regarding the recent developments.

Celikkol is also expected to raise worries about recent remarks by Retired Chief of Joint Staff of the U.S. Army General Richard Myers who stated stated on Saturday that fight against terrorist PKK is not a priority for the U.S. since essential struggle in Iraq is against the extremist groups that are violating Baghdad and other regions of Iraq.

State Minister Kursad Tuzmen, responding to a suggestion by Motherland Party (ANAVATAN) leader Erkan Mumcu to close Habur border gate for three days as a sanction, said that Turkey will do what it has to do in good time.

Kirkuk and ethnic conflict.

This city with its three-fold ethnic division is coveted by the Kurds who apparently already occupy the oil fields. While the Kurds may win a referendum there will be a huge disgruntled minority who will probably not accept the results.

Oil-rich Kirkuk at melting point as factions clash
By Patrick Cockburn in Kirkuk
Published: 22 March 2007
Seven bombs detonating in the space of 35 minutes sent up clouds of black smoke over the centre of Kirkuk earlier this week. The explosions in Arab and Turkoman districts killed 12 people and injured 39 but exactly who was behind them is unclear.

Kirkuk is a place where trust is in short supply. "I firmly predict there will be a rumour the Kurds were behind these bombings," sighs Rafat Hamarash, the head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the Kurdish political party that largely controls the city. He said somebody wanted to stir up ethnic divisions between Kurd, Arab and Turkoman before they vote on the future of Kirkuk in nine months' time. Mr Hamarash is probably right about the motives for the latest attacks. The city is approaching a critical moment in its long history. In December, there is a referendum, its timing agreed under the Iraqi constitution, when 1.8 million people of Kirkuk province will vote on whether or not to join the highly autonomous Kurdish region that is already almost a separate state. Kurds will vote in favour and probably win; Arabs and Turkomans will vote against and lose.

The Kirkuk issue is as notoriously divisive in Iraq as sovereignty over certain parts of Ireland used to be in British politics. Winston Churchill famously complained that, after all the political and military cataclysms of the First World War, the question of who should have "the dreary spires of Fermanagh and Tyrone", remained as ferociously contested as before the war.

The control of Kirkuk divided Kurds from Arabs in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and continues to do so. The city is commonly called "a powder keg" though it has yet to explode. But that does not mean it will not happen and the referendum might just be the detonator for that explosion.

The Kurds believe they were a majority in the city until ethnically cleansed by Saddam and replaced by Arab settlers. As the regime crumbled in April 2003, the Kurds captured Kirkuk and its oilfields. They have no plans to give them up.

In negotiations in Baghdad with Arab political parties, they fought for and won the right to take back Kirkuk constitutionally.

First comes "normalisation", to be concluded by the end of this month, whereby Arab settlers leave and Kurds return. After that there will be a census and, finally, before the end of 2007, a referendum on becoming part of the Kurdistan regional government.

It now looks as if the referendum will have to be postponed. No Kurdish leader I spoke to thinks it can take place on time. "Normalisation" has not really taken place, governments in Baghdad have persistently dragged their feet. The Shia religious parties may be allied to the Kurds in order to form a government but they fear political damage among their own followers if they are seen to be handing over Kirkuk to the Kurds.

For a city so coveted by Arabs and Kurds, Kirkuk is a dismal place, drearier than anything to be seen in Fermanagh or Tyrone. Its main street, with little booths selling shoddy goods, looks like an Afghan shanty town.

It has never benefited from its oil riches; Saddam deliberately neglected it. Rezgar Ali, the head of the local council, says Baghdad starves the city of money. At one point, he threatened to retaliate by stopping the supply of cement from local factories to Baghdad.

The Kurds may delay the referendum but not indefinitely. Kirkuk is too central to their national demands. Militarily they could overcome Arab resistance though they might have to cede certain areas. Whatever happens, the approach to the referendum is generating more violence.

A delicate ethnic balance

* Kurds in Kirkuk pre-date all other ethnic groups. Turkomans began arriving in the Ottoman era.

* Under British occupation in 1921, population about 61% Kurd, 28% Turkoman and 8% Arab.

* Official census in 1957 found 48.3% of residents to be Kurd, 28.2% Arab and 21.4% Turkoman.

* From 1963, Baathists sought to enforce Arab nationalism. By 1988 an estimated 200,000 Kurds had fled. Shia Turkoman villages were also destroyed.

* After the 1991 Gulf War ethnic cleansing intensified. In 1996 a law compelled all Kurds and other non-Arabs to register as "Arab", with expulsion for those who refused.

* Between 1991 and 2003, 120,000 to 200,000 non-Arabs were expelled from in and around Kirkuk.

* Arab and Turkoman politicians claim that around 350,000 Kurds have returned since 2003.

Kurds accept new Oil Law in Iraq

This is from Al Jazeera. There is still virtually no discussion of this bill in the mainstream press over a week after the first translation appeared in the blogosphere.The only free press it seems is in the blogosphere. Eventually no doubt the world free press will feel shamed enough to insert a few columns in back pages.
It seems that the International Monetary Fund is already starting to determine prices in Iraq as it insists that gas is too cheap and so lo and behold the price rises.


Kurds 'back' new draft Iraq oil law





Barzani's Kurdistan government wants to have
a bigger say in Iraq's economic decisions [AP]



Kurdish authorities have agreed to back a draft law to manage and share Iraq's oil wealth, removing the last major obstacle to approving the measure.

Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish government in the north, announced this at a joint news conference on Saturday in Baghdad with Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president, and the US ambassador.




Barzani said he and Talabani had discussed the latest draft law by telephone with Nuri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, and "the results were good".



"We reached a final agreement ... we accept the draft," Barzani said.








There was no comment on the announcement from Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, or Talabani, and Barzani did not elaborate.



It was unclear whether new concessions had to be made to win his approval.



After the cabinet signs off, the measure goes to parliament for final approval once the legislators return from a recess early next month.



'Change needed'



Analysts believe that a new law is needed to encourage international companies to invest in Iraq to repair pipelines, upgrade wells, develop new fields and to exploit the country's vast petroleum reserves, which is estimated at about 115bn barrels.



According to Iraqis familiar with the deliberations, the draft law would offer international oil companies several methods to invest, including production-sharing agreements.



The agreements would give US and other international companies a substantial share of the oil revenues to recover their initial investments and then allow them big tax breaks.



That angers some Iraqis, who believe foreign investors will get too much control of the nation's wealth.



But the biggest battle is over who gets the most say in awarding contracts and managing the revenues. The Kurds, who have run their own mini-state in the north since 1991, want regional administrations to have a bigger role.



Most of the country's proven oil reserves lie in the Kurdish north and the Shia-dominated south, which also wants to establish a self-ruled region.



That has led the Sunni Iraqis to demand more power for the central government, to assure them a share of the wealth.


Wealth distribution



To win Kurdish approval, the current draft gives a major role to the regional administrations in awarding contracts but allows a committee under the prime minister to review them.



To satisfy Iraqi Sunnis, oil revenues would be distributed to the 18 provinces based on their populations - not on whether they have oil.



While the Kurds want more control of revenue generated from their fields, others think the new proposals give the regions too much control.



Speaking at an oil seminar in Jordan this month, Tariq Shafiq, a former oil official, who helped draft the first version, said: "If implemented, the balance of power in the management of Iraq's oil and gas resources would have shifted alarmingly from the centre to the regions."



Price increases



In a related development, Hussein al-Shahrastani, Iraqi oil minister, has announced a 15 per cent increase in fuel prices to be applied as early as March.



Al Shahrastani said that the decision was made after consultation with the International Monetary Fund to lift subsidies on fuel products.



The government plans to raise the price of benzene to 400 dinars a gallon and petrol to 350 dinars a gallon.

A Turkish view of Kirkuk

A Turkish viewpoint on the Kirkuk issue. A vote is to be held this year on the status of the city. Kurds hope it will become part of the Kurdish area and are doing everything they can to influence the outcome.


Turkey's proactive initiative on Kirkuk
Friday, February 9, 2007




The seminars held in major US cities on Kirkuk are a manifestation of a new diplomacy effort by Ankara

ELIF ÖZMENEK
There has recently been a growing interest in the U.S. media over the issue of Kirkuk, with the Los Angeles Times naming the city as the next front in the war.

“American officials, regional leaders and residents are increasingly worried that this northern oil-rich city could develop into a third front in the country's civil war just as additional U.S. troops arrive in Baghdad and Al Anbar province as reinforcements for battles there,” read the LA Times of Feb. 1.

The Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies David Cuthell elucidates: “Unfortunately the subject of Turkmens, like many of the subjects that have to do with Turkey or the Middle East, only seems to come up into the focus of the American public and government in times of crises. Now there is potential crisis in the case of Turkmens with respect to events taking place in Kirkuk.”

It is clear that Ankara is very concerned that the planned referendum this year would bring Kirkuk under Kurdish rule, since hundreds of thousands of Kurds have moved to the city in recent years. Turkey sees this population movement as a systematic campaign to change the demographic structure of the city to guarantee an outcome favoring the Kurds in the upcoming referendum.

“There are 10 billion barrels of oil underneath Kirkuk. That is almost 6 percent of the world's known oil reserves” said Cuthell, explaining the economic element that lies alongside the political one in Ankara's concern. Such an economic independence would boost prospects for the Kurds to establish an independent state next to Turkey's southeastern borders. Yet, on the other hand, the White House signals that it will not heed Turkey's demands for postponement of a planned referendum on the fate of the city to a later date.

Ankara, after a four-year roller coaster ride in Turkish-U.S. relations, now knows that the Bush government is not willing to risk their relationship with the Kurds to ease Turkey's concern over an independent Kurdistan. Thus there is a growing interest on the Turkish side to bring the issue of Kirkuk and the situation of Turkmens in the region to the U.S. public.



The Turkish outreach to US public opinion:

While Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül's visit to the United States continues, the Institute of Turkish Studies and the New York Turkmen Institute together organized a series of talks both in New York and Washington. Justice and Development Party (AKP) Balıkesir deputy Turhan Çömez and main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) Tokat deputy Orhan Ziya Diren attended these seminars as guess speakers.

Cuthell expressed his appreciation for their visit. “I have to applaud both parliamentarians Çömez and Diren for their effort to bring this issue to the American public.”

Çömez, in a private interview with the Turkish Daily News, stated that the aim of their visit is to change U.S. public opinion about Kirkuk and Turkmens. “I believe that Turkey should verbalize her main concerns at civil society platforms,” he said. “In this respect we will attend several conferences at universities and meet representatives of some nongovernmental organizations. We will explain Turkey's stance and expectations about Iraq and Kirkuk.”

Analysts say that the seminars on Kirkuk held in major U.S. cities are a manifestation of a new diplomacy effort to put a face to Turkey's regional claims that she can not stand by idly and watch a referendum disfranchise the Turkmen population.



Gül's proactive policy is successful:

“One of the things I find rather heartening is that under this current administration the Turkish diplomacy has become very proactive,” Cuthell says. The foreign minister has been to the U.S. on numerous occasions in the last year. I think this is reflective of basically a new foreign ministry and much more activist one. I believe that there is much better job [being done]… one being communicating concerns”

He also states that many U.S. politicians, academics and businessmen started to see that there is a new relationship developing between Turkey and United States that is no longer a younger brother-older brother one. “We are moving into an era of bilateral equality.”

Time will show if the United States will ever accept bilateral equality with Turkey. In the meantime though, the analysts say that Washington has found the AKP a party it can work with and that there is still no alternative at this point in Turkish politics.

*ozmenek@hotmail.com

A Kurdish viewpoint on Iraq

Obviously Kurdish autonomy or independence in Iraq is viewed with some fear by Turkey Syria and Iran and the referendum in Kirkuk may result in more ethnic violence.

The growing powers of Kurds in Iraq are becoming a threat to Turkey, the Sickman of Europe

2/8/2007 KurdishMedia.com - By Assad Waissi
According to press and media in the last two months, Turkish threat has become a main debate among KRG, Kurdish citizens, and Kurdish representatives in Baghdad. I would say the growing power of Kurds in Iraq and their influence on other parts of Kurdistan is not only threatening Turkey but Iran and Syria as well. The Turkish government and politicians are hopelessly becoming more and more desperate as the Kirkuk referendum gets closer. This fascist regime is taking every step to prevent the upcoming referenda in Kirkuk and to jeopardize peace and harmony in Kurdistan, Northern Iraq. They have held numbers of conferences with neighboring countries Iran, Syria, and other Arab nations, including members of Iraqi government as well as the Iraqi Turkmen front leader Sadettin Ergec and others to create violence and chaos between the Kurds, Arab, Turkmen, and other ethnicities. The goals of these conferences were specifically and overly aimed at the Kurds in Northern Iraq. They have achieved nothing except humiliation.

In spite of their desperation about the future of Kurds and their concern about the growing power of Kurds in Iraq, The Turks are left with anxiety about the future of the twenty-five million Kurds in their country. Their hopelessness has forced them to use threatening language to frighten Kurds in Iraq and other parts of Kurdistan. They have “repeatedly warned Iraqi Kurdish groups against trying to seize control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, saying Turkey will not stand by amid growing tensions among ethnic Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds in Iraq's oil-rich north”(International Herald Tribune). I don’t think Turkish politicians and their support for the Turkmen would make any changes in the future of Kirkuk. The future of Kirkuk rests in the hands of the Iraqi government and Kurdish Regional Government, not with the Turkish politicians. Their interference was condemned by a large number of Kurdish representatives in Baghdad and also the KRG.

The rise of Kurdish power in Iraq is forcing the Turkish government and politicians to ally with Syria, Iran and other Arab nations to isolate Kurds. These countries have done all that was necessary in the past and today to contain the Kurds and keep control over those parts of Kurdistan that were granted to them and to assimilate and exterminate the Kurds.

They have denied Kurdish identity, deprived Kurds of their rights, and implement a policy of oppression against them. In this regard, they have in most cases cooperated and reached agreements among themselves to destroy Kurds by banning their language, media, and culture. They have brutally beaten down Kurdish uprisings by outlawing them and listing those Kurds as terrorists. The governments of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran are compelled to wage continual war against the Kurds. During this struggle, the Kurds have lost hundreds of thousands of their people and have been the victims of mass expulsions. You have all seen the result: Saddam Hussein and the massacres of Halabja and Anfal in Iraq. Tremendous suffering has been inflicted on us “Kurds,” This is, in fact, a case of genocide.

What they have done in the past and what they are trying to achieve today is to isolate the Kurds economically, socially, and culturally. They have plundered the riches of Kurdistan and prevented it from developing economically, socially, and culturally. This is exactly what Turkey hoping to achieve through his threatening language, and it is not taking them anywhere. However, they know they have lost the control and have no power to isolate the Kurds any longer. They know Kurdish questions are no longer about rights, freedom and equality. In other words, the Kurdish question is not the problem of a minority of the population of this or that country; it is the question of a divided country and a nation. The borders that divide Kurdistan are not natural, economic, or cultural borders. They are artificial borders drawn against the will of the Kurdish people according to the interests of the forces that did the dividing. In many cases, these borders have divided villages, towns, even families, and have had divisive and destructive effects on the economic, social, and cultural life of the Kurds in those regions.

They have fortunately failed in their dictatorial plans and tactics against Kurds because Kurdish national consciousness has strengthened from year to year, and we are stronger today than fifty or a hundred years ago.

Now is the time to strength our unity and nationhood. We the “Kurds” are the third largest nation in the Middle East and the largest nation in the world without our own state. Today Kurds worldwide are standing behind their proud and valuable historical movements and are working forward to end violence, racism, and oppression and to achieve social justice, peace, freedom, and equality for all Kurds. Yet we still continue to fail, despite our long history and rich culture, to attain our independence, even though we have waged resistance since the beginning of the nineteenth century and paid a high price for it. Our failure is because of the tribal social structure, divisions between religious movements, and party ideologies.

We the “Kurds” need to unite behind our brothers and sisters in Iraq, with Kurdish parties in Turkey, in Iran, and Syria and support their achievement and movement. Remember whenever it is questions about Kurdish rights and freedoms, these four nations have in most cases cooperated and reached agreements among themselves to isolate or destroy the Kurds. Yet even with this oppression, we sit silent and complain and blame other nations for not supporting our movements. It is our right and responsibility to support one another and decide on our own future. In order for us “Kurds” to be strong, we need to support one another be united. It does not matter if it is an uprising in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria. Our support through peaceful demonstration will strengthen their movement and provide a better future for you and me. These four states have always been in the state of fear whenever there is a single Kurdish demonstration or uprising in any Kurdish regions or any part of the world. These countries are no longer a threat to us “Kurds”; they know we are a threat to their colonization and dominance in Kurdish regions. For example, the growing power of Kurds in Iraq in term of economics, culture, solidarity, nationhood, and militarily has created tremendous fear in the hearts of Turkish politicians and government. Our future no longer rests with these fascist regimes; it rests within our solidarity.

Turkish government and politicians are now uniting with Iran, Syria, and other Arab nations to isolate the Kurds in Iraq from developing economically, socially, culturally, and nationally. We the Kurdish citizen of the four Kurdistan regions and particularly the Kurds in the Western Countries are sitting in silent and complain that U.S.A. and Britain betrayed the Kurds. Why wouldn’t they, when we do not support our own movements in Northern Iraq? We must support our people and their movements or will continue to fail like it has always failed in the past.

The most famous and important nationalist leader, Mohandas Gandhi, achieved the national independence of India using nonviolent methods such as organizing work stoppages and fasting until near death. We the Kurds are able to do that. We need to show our support through peaceful

demonstration to those who are fighting and dying for our freedom. For
example, Turkey is taking every step that is necessary to jeopardize Kurdish improvement in Iraq and also attacking the Kurdish parties “PKK” in Iraq. There has not yet been a single Kurdish uprising and demonstration either in any Kurdish regions or in the western countries where there are hundreds of thousands of Kurds residing. This is humiliation to our history and nationhood. This is a huge disappointment for the Kurdish organization and parties that are working hard and losing their lives for the sake of our rights and freedom.

Please, forget being a Kurd of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey; unite as one nation and support the KRG and other Kurdish movements that are effective in other parts of Kurdistan till death. This is the only way to prove our unity and nationhood. We must support the KRG and Kurdish “PKK” movement.

Strengthen them through our united voice and peaceful demonstrations.

Today is the most important time and opportunity to send our united voice and movements to those oppressive, imperial governments and other nations, including Britain, U.S. and the United Nation enough is enough. Our goals and future is in our hands, and the only way to achieve our goals is by uniting with our brother and sisters in Iraq, Turkey, Iran, and Syria through their movements. We can be united and can be strong.

Assad Waissi is a Kurdish writer lives in Canada.