Iraqi government’s Arabization of Kirkuk plan revealed

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The Iraqi government is attempting an Arabization process in the city of Kirkuk by employing Arabs from outside the governorate, said a Kirkuk Province official.

The Iraqi Oil Ministry has been trying to contract 260 Arab employees in the North Oil Company (NOC) in Kirkuk. According to a Kirkuk Provincial Council member, this is part of the Arabization process implemented by the Iraqi government.

Kurdistan24 has obtained several documents endorsed by Iraqi government officials that document the transfer of Arab employees from central and southern Iraq to work in Kirkuk.

Fuad Hussein Shwani, a member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, has pressured the NOC to refuse the newly employed people. Shwani labels it a new way to deceive the local administration through bringing more Arabs to the governorate, which according to him “is not acceptable.”

Speaking to a Kurdistan24 reporter, Shwani said, “Any employee from outside of the governorate transferred to Kirkuk should go through the local administration and the Provincial Council.”

“The Kirkuk governor has been supportive of us to prevent this,” he added.

NOC is an Iraqi state-owned company that operates in some parts of Kirkuk, and previously in Nineveh, Diyala and some areas in central Iraq.

The company has 15,000 employees and 1,000 of them are Kurds while Kurds form 50 percent of the province’s population.

The Iraqi government has been secretly transferring the employees, says Ahmed Askary, a member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council.

“Therefore, we had a meeting with the company and told them this is illegal and unconstitutional and has to stop,” Askary told Kurdistan24.

Reporting by Baxtiyar Goran
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany and Ava Homa