Kuwait Times

Published Date: April 01, 2007

BAGHDAD: The Iraqi government has endorsed a decision to relocate and compensate thousands of Arabs who moved to Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein's campaign to push out the Kurds, an official said yesterday. The decision was a major step toward implementing a constitutional requirement to determine the status of the disputed oil-rich city by the end of the year.

Iraq's Justice Minister Hashim Al-Shebli said the Cabinet agreed on Thursday to a committee's February recommendation that Arabs who moved to the city from other parts of Iraq after July 14, 1968, would be returned to their original towns and given monetary compensation.  Al-Shebli, a Sunni Arab, also confirmed he had offered his resignation on Thursday, citing differences with the government and his own political group, the secular Iraqi List, which joined Sunni Arab lawmakers in opposing the Kirkuk decision. He said he would continue in office until the Cabinet approved his resignation. "I have differences with the government on one side and with the my parliamentary bloc on another," al-Shebli said, without elaborating. The Iraqi List, which is led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, holds 25 seats in the 275-seat parliament.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, could not be reached for comment. Government adviser Sami al-Askari said he had no information about the resignation. Kurds are seeking to incorporate the city, 290 kilometers north of Baghdad, into their autonomous region, but the move is opposed by Arabs and Turkmen, backed by Turkey.

Iraq's constitution calls for a separate referendum on Kirkuk's future by the end of this year, but the opponents want to put off the vote -worried about Kurdish dominance and more violence if the referendum were held and Kurds win. The relocation of Arab residents from Kirkuk would help the Kurds ensure a majority in favor of incorporating the city. The justice minister, who heads the committee overseeing talks on Kirkuk's status, said the relocations would be voluntary and those who move will be paid 20 million Iraqi dinars (about US$15,000) and given land in their hometowns.  "There will be no coercion and the decision will not be implemented by force," al-Shebli told The Associated Press. He said local authorities in Kirkuk, would begin distributing forms soon to Arab families to determine who was part of the campaign. He said he could not predict how long the process would take.

Planning Minister Ali Baban said the Cabinet decision in favor of the relocation recommendations was adopted over the opposition of Sunni Arab members of the Shiite-led government, members of the Iraqi List and at least one Cabinet minister loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr. "We demanded that the question of Kirkuk be resolved through dialogue between the political blocs and not through the committee," he told the AP earlier this week. "They say the repatriation is voluntary, but we have our doubts." He said the Sunni opposition was based on the fact that the constitution is under review, with the clause relevant to Kirkuk likely to be debated in that review, and no action should be taken while the issue remains disputed.

The Shiites and Kurds had agreed to consider amendments when the constitution was put to a referendum in 2005 in hopes of winning support from Sunni politicians. The Sunnis now heatedly complain that the constitutional review has never taken place, even though it was to have occurred within four months of being adopted. "We will continue to oppose the recommendations and try to persuade other parties to see our point of view," Baban said. "We feel that this poses a danger to the unity of Iraq and could have consequences." Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni lawmaker with the Iraqi List, also denounced the decision, saying it fails to address many key issues, including how to deal with property claims.

"There are more than 13,000 unsolved cases before the commission in charge of this point and it just solved no more than 250 of them," he said of the property claims.  "The other thing is the huge demographic change in Kirkuk as more than 650,000 Kurds have been brought in illegally over the past four years. We contest these resolutions and we will raise to the parliament to be discussed." Tens of thousands of Kurds and non-Arabs fled Kirkuk in the 1980s and 1990s when Saddam's government implemented its "Arabization" policy. Kurds and non-Arabs were replaced with pro-government Arabs from the mainly Shiite impoverished south. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Kirkuk was widely seen as a tinderbox as Kurds and other non-Arabs streamed back with their house, keys in hand, only to find their homes were either sold or given to Arabs.

The returning Kurds became displaced in their own hometown as they found nowhere to live except in parks and abandoned government buildings. At the same time, many Arabs were forced to leave the city, despite Sunni and Shiite Arab leaders pleading with them not to. Adil Abdul-Hussein Alami, a 62-year-old Shiite who moved to the city 23 years ago in return for US$1,000 and a free piece of land, said he would find it hard to leave.  "Kirkuk is an Iraqi city and I'm Iraqi," said the father of nine. "We came here as one family and now we are four. Our blood is mixed with Kurds and Turkmen." But Ahmed Salih Zowbaa, a 52-year old Shiite father of six who moved to the city from Kufa in 1987, agreed with the government's decision. "We gave our votes to this government and constitution and as long as the government will compensate us, then there is no injustice at all," he said. -  AP