Provincial Council Member: Baghdad's Arabization plan in Nineveh Plains on hold

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi government has decided to suspend “the Arabization” process in the Nineveh Plains after concerns by the Nineveh Provincial Council (NPC) and ethnic components.

After pressures by the representatives of the Ezidis, Shabaks, Christians, and other components at the NPC, the plans for demographic change are on hold, Ghazwan Dawdee, the representative of the Kurdish Shabaks in the NPC, told KDP Info website on Monday.

“With our efforts, we have reached a compromise with Nineveh’s Civic Status departments to delay the registration of Arab families and not to abide by the order until it is finally canceled. There is no way that we accept the implementation of the order,” Dawdee stated.

NPC and representatives of minorities in the province have recently called on the Federal Government of Iraq to end the demographic change in the region.

In an official letter directed to the federal Ministry of Interior, NPC Head Bashar Kiki said the decision to move the residency of 450 Arab families to areas in the Nineveh Plains should be reconsidered to avoid a demographic change in the area.

Kiki said the representatives made efforts to prevent the plan from being implemented, warning the campaign would have paved the way for more families to enter the Nineveh Plains until it would be entirely Arabized.

In a statement on July 31, three NPC members representing Shabak, Ezidi, and Christian components warned that the administrative procedure would negatively affect the stability in the Nineveh Plains and would lead to a demographic change. They concluded that the process was a violation of the Iraqi Constitution.

The Council members called for immediate termination of the decision and prior consultation with the federal authorities.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany