Three Kurdish officials removed from posts in Kirkuk, replaced by Turkmen
Three Kurdish officials from the Department of Health in Kirkuk Province were removed from their positions, local sources told Kurdistan 24 on Friday.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Three Kurdish officials from the Department of Health in Kirkuk Province were removed from their positions, local sources told Kurdistan 24 on Friday.
Since Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed Shia Hashd al-Shaabi militias took control of the city on Oct. 16, dozens of Kurdish officials have been removed from their posts, including former Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim.
Noreldin Bayez Rasool, the senior manager in the Department of Administrative, Financial, and Legal Affairs, Hemin Fayeq, Director of Operations and Emergency Medicine, and one more Kurdish doctor were replaced with three Turkmen ones, according to sources.
Kurdish officials say most of the measures implemented by the newly-appointed authorities in the province are illegal and target only one ethnic group—the Kurds.
Kirkuk, one of the disputed areas between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi government, is a multi-ethnic region home to Kurds, Turkmen, Christians, as well as Sunni and Shia Arabs.
“The exemption of people from a specific ethnic group and the assignment of others from one single component [Turkmen] is an unacceptable procedure,” Ramla al-Obeidi, a member of the Kirkuk Council, said in a press statement.
Obeidi added that the removal of the Kurdish directors was “incorrect,” and the matter “must be addressed as soon as possible,” adding that the Health Department should “clarify the reasons for these changes.”
Kurdistan 24 was unable to get an immediate comment from the sacked Kurdish officials.
Following the Kurdistan Region’s historic Sep. 25 independence referendum, Iraqi troops and Iranian-backed militias seized control of Kirkuk in an assault on Peshmerga forces who had previously protected the province since 2014.
Activists say the Hashd al-Shaabi militias have launched a campaign to spread Shia symbols on the streets in the city of Kirkuk while murals belonging to historical Kurdish figures are torn down and vandalized.
Images circulated on social media during the week showed the removal of the Kurdish language from the front of a municipal building in the province.
However, according to the Iraqi Constitution, Arabic and Kurdish are the official languages of Iraq.