Masrour Barzani: Kirkuk occupied, no recognition of current administration
A senior Kurdish official on Monday affirmed Kirkuk is currently under occupation, and that there will be no agreement on any one-sided administration of the city until the situation is restored to pre-Oct. 2017 circumstances.
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – A senior Kurdish official on Monday affirmed Kirkuk is currently under occupation, and that there will be no agreement on any one-sided administration of the city until the situation is restored to pre-Oct. 2017 circumstances.
“From our perspective, Kirkuk now is an occupied city. Until the situation is restored, we will not recognize any system or mechanism for the administration of the province [by Baghdad],” the Chancellor of the Kurdistan Region Security Council (KRSC), Masrour Barzani told reporters on the sidelines of the annual Barzani Charity Foundation (BCF) conference in Erbil.
Kirkuk is an oil-rich and ethnically diverse province made up of Arabs, Turkmen, and Christians and a Kurdish majority.
The province is also a disputed territory between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Iraqi Federal Government. The area was under the protection of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces since 2014 after the Iraqi army collapsed as the Islamic State (IS) spread across northern Iraq.
On Oct. 16, 2017, Iraqi forces along with the Iranian-backed Shia Hashd al-Shaabi militia launched an attack to retake the province and other disputed territories from the Kurdish troops. The attack led to the displacement of over more than a hundred thousand people to cities in the Kurdistan Region out of fear of abuses and violations.
“We ask for implementation of the Iraqi Constitution to restore and normalize all areas that are now occupied, which are, in fact, disputed territories. The rights of the people in those areas can only be guaranteed through the implementation of the Article 140 of the constitution,” Barzani argued.
According to the constitution, Article 140 was to be implemented before the end of 2007. Decades later, it has yet to be enacted.
Article 140 calls on the government to hold a referendum in the provinces where people can decide on their future, ultimately choosing whether to be a part of the Kurdistan Region or remain under the Federal Government of Iraq.
Editing by Nadia Riva