Kirkuk

Location of Kirkuk in Iraqi map

Kirkuk (also spelled Karkuk or Kerkuk; Arabic: كركوك, Kirkūk; Kurdish: كركوك ; Syriac: ܐܪܦܗܐ, Arrapha; Persian: کرکوک; Turkish: Kerkük) is a city in northern Iraq. According to some sources, it lies in the Kurdistan geographical region, in what can also be considered Assyria. The present city of Kirkuk stands on the site of the ancient Hurrian (Khurrite) and Assyrian capital of Arrapha, which sits near the Khasa River on the ruins of a 5,000-year-old settlement. Arrapha reached great importance under the Assyrians in the 10th and 11th centuries BC. Because of the strategic geographical location of the city, Kirkuk was the battle ground for three empires, Assyria, Babylonia, and Media, who controlled the city at various times.

Kirkuk is the centre of the northern Iraqi petroleum industry. It is an historically and ethnically mixed city populated by Kurds, Turkmens, Assyrians, Arabs, and Armenians. It is located at 35.47°N, 44.41°E, in the Iraqi governorate of at-Ta'mim, 250 kilometres (156 miles) north of the capital, Baghdad. The Kirkuk region lies between the Zagros Mountains to the north-east, the Zab River and the Tigris River to the west, the Hamrin Mountains (Arabic: جبل حمرين) to the south, and the Sirwan (Diyala) River to the south-east. The population was estimated to stand at 755,700 in 2003.

Etymology

The city was founded around 2000 BC and derives its name from the old Hurrian word Arabkha which was later changed to Arrapha[2]. One theory states that the name Kirkuk is derived from the Assyrian name Karkha D-Bet Slokh (Arabic: كرخاد بيث سلوخ), which means 'siege wall'. The cuneiform script found in 1927 at the foot of Kirkuk Citadel stated that the city of Erekha of Babylonia was on the site of Kirkuk. Other sources consider Erekha to have been simply one part of the larger Arrapha metropolis. Some sources state that the name of Kirkuk is derived from the ancient Kurdish name of the region Baba Kurkur (father of flames) and later Kurkurk. The region around Kirkuk was known during the Persian empire of the Sassanids period as Garmakan, which in Persian means the 'Land of Warmth' or the 'Hot Land'; this name is still used by the Kurds in the form of Garmian with the same meaning. The Turkmen of Kirkuk believe that the word Kirkuk started to be used for the first time by the Turkmen State Kara Koyunlu (1375 – 1468). According to Turkmen tradition, the name of the city comes from their word Kerk, meaning 'beauty'.

History

Originally the city was founded by Hurrian-related Zagros-Taurus dwellers who were generally known as Karda or Qurtie (more precisely Lullubi branch of this people) by lowland-dwellers of Southern Mesopotamia. lather the city was under domination of their Arian allies and succesors such as Mittanis in the 17th century BC. At the same era Ancient Assyrians frequently wanted to take over the city. However they were overthrown by Medes. After Medes other Iranic empires had the region under their control; namely Achaemenids, Parthians, and Sassanids. In the medieval era the city was center of Sharazor principality.

In the 7th century AD, with Arab invasion of Sassanid empire, the region fell into Muslims control. The principal Arab extended families in the city of Kirkuk were: the Tikriti and the Hadidi (Arabic: الحديدي). The Tikriti family was the main Arab family in Kirkuk coming from Tikrit in 1600s ]. Other Arab tribes who settled in Kirkuk during the Ottoman Period are the Al-Ubaid (Arabic: العبيد) and the Al-Jiburi (Arabic: الجبور). The Al-Ubaid came from just northwest of Mosul when they were forced out of the area by other Arab tribes. They settled in the Hawija district in Kirkuk in 1935 during the government of Yasin al-Hashimi.

The time of occupation of the Kirkuk area by the Safavid Dynasty during the reign of Shah Ismail I in the 16th century AD is the time when the settlement of Turkmen in the area began. The Safavid tried to impose the Shi'a faith on the Kurds, in an attempt to replace the Sunni Muslim whom they did not trust. According to the Turkmen themselves, they migrated to Iraq during the Umayyads and Abbasid eras because they were in demand by these rulers as a result of their prowess in battle. However, they acknowledge that this period of their residence in Iraq was one of introduction rather than settlement and therefore the Turkmen of that era were integrated into the existing population. They believe that real settlement began during the Seljuq era when Toghrul entered Iraq in 1055 with his army composed mostly of Oghuz Turks. Kirkuk remained under the control of the Seljuq Empire for 63 years. The Turkmen settlement in Kirkuk was further expanded later during the Ottoman Era. However the Iraqi historian Abdul-Razzak Al-Hassani (Arabic: عبدالرزاق الحسني) asserts that the Turkmen of this region are: "part of the forces of Sultan Murad IV, who recaptured Iraq from the Safavid in 1638, and remained in these parts to protect this route between the southern and northern Ottoman Wilayahs".

Oil field

In 1927 a huge oil gusher was discovered at Baba Gurgur near Kirkuk. The Kirkuk oil field was brought into use by the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) in 1934 and has ever since remained the basis of northern Iraqi oil production with over ten billion barrels (1.6 km³) of proven remaining oil reserves as of 1998. After about seven decades of operation, Kirkuk still produces up to one million barrels a day, almost half of all Iraqi oil exports. The facilities have been frequently sabotaged during the fighting between Iraqi forces and the Kurds.

Some analysts believe that poor reservoir-management practices during the Saddam Hussein years may have seriously, and even permanently, damaged Kirkuk's oil field. One example showed an estimated 1.5 billion barrels of excess fuel oil being reinjected. Other problems include refinery residue and gas-stripped oil. Fuel oil reinjection has increased oil viscosity at Kirkuk making it more difficult and expensive to get the oil out of the ground.

Overall, between April 2003 and late December 2004 there were an estimated 123 attacks on Iraqi energy infrastructures, including the country's 4,350 mile-long pipeline system. In response to these attacks, which have cost Iraq billions of US dollars in lost oil-export revenues and repair costs, the US military set up the Task Force Shield to guard Iraq's energy infrastructure and the Kirkuk-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline in particular. In spite of the fact that little damage was done to Iraq's oil fields during the war itself, looting and sabotage after the war ended was highly destructive and accounted for perhaps eighty percent of the total damage.

The discovery of vast quantities of oil in the region after World War I provided the impetus for the annexation of the former Ottoman Wilayah of Mosul (of which the Kirkuk region was a part), to the Iraqi Kingdom, established in 1921. Since then and particularly from 1963 onwards, there have been continuous attempts to transform the ethnic make-up of the region.

Pipelines from Kirkuk run through Turkey to Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea and were one of the two main routes for the export of Iraqi oil under the Oil-for-Food Programme following the Gulf War of 1991. This was in accordance with a United Nations mandate that at least 50% of the oil exports pass through Turkey. There were two parallel lines built in 1977 and 1987.

Demographics

Major historic ethnic groups of Kirkuk are Kurds, Arabs, Turkmens, Assyrians. Kirkuk has a Kurdish majority , despite Saddam Hussein's arabization of city during the 1980s and 1990s. Many Kurds who were forced out of the city during the Ba'th rule, have started to claim back there lands since the toppling of Hussain's regime. The city of Kirkuk was long known as a city where people of different ethnic groups lived together in peace, but this changed starting in the 1980s during the regime of Saddam Hussein. Kurds and Turkmen were forced from Kirkuk and outlying villages where they had been living since the time of the British occupation of Iraq, to be replaced with Arab oilfield workers in Saddam's Arabization plan of the Al-Anfal Campaign.

For generations Kirkuk was Iraq's melting pot where the country's diverse ethnic and religious groups lived in relative peace. Today, Kirkuk's ethnic balance is threatened by Iraqi insurgency, the Kurds and other groups struggling for power in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. At present there is surprisingly little sectarian violence, while political leaders quarrel over who will control Kirkuk. Newly powerful Kurds, who hold the second greatest share of seats in the Iraqi National Assembly insist that Kirkuk be included in the Kurdish Autonomous Region in the north. However, Sunni Arabs and Turkmen want the city controlled by Iraq's central government in Baghdad, 150 miles south. This dispute virtually derailed the creation of Iraq's new government: Kurds refused to support the new government without a guarantee that Kirkuk would be part of Kurdish Autonomous Region, and Shiites, who hold the majority of seats in the Iraqi National Assembly, refused to give in.

1970 Autonomy Agreement

On paper, the Autonomy Agreement of March 11, 1970, recognized the legitimacy of Kurdish nationalism and guaranteed Kurdish participation in government and Kurdish language teaching in schools. However, it reserved judgment on the territorial extent of Kurdistan, pending a new census. Such a census, according to Kurds would surely have shown a solid Kurdish majority in the city of Kirkuk and the surrounding oilfields, as well as in the secondary oil-bearing area of Khanaqin (Arabic: خانقين), south of the city of As Sulaymaniyah (Arabic: السليمانية). A census was not scheduled until 1977, by which time the autonomy deal was dead. In June 1973, with Ba'ath-Kurdish relations already souring, the guerrilla leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani laid formal claim to the Kirkuk oilfields. Baghdad interpreted this as a virtual declaration of war, and, in March 1974, unilaterally decreed an autonomy statute. The new statute was a far cry from the 1970 Manifesto, and its definition of the Kurdish autonomous area explicitly excluded the oil-rich areas of Kirkuk, Khanaqin and Jabal Sinjar. In tandem with the 1970–1974 autonomy process, the Iraqi regime carried out a comprehensive administrative reform, in which the country's sixteen provinces, or governorates, were renamed and in some cases had their boundaries altered. The old province of Kirkuk was split in half. The area around the city itself was named At-Ta'mim(Arabic: التأميم) ("nationalization"), and its boundaries were redrawn to give an Arab majority.

Ethnic cleansing

In 1975, the Iraqi government embarked on a sweeping campaign to "Arabize" the areas that had been excluded from Kurdistan under the offer of autonomy in 1970. Restrictions were imposed, and maintained throughout the following years, on the employment and residence of Kurds in the Kirkuk area. Arab tribes from southern Iraq were enticed to move to the north with government benefits and offers of housing. Uprooted Kurdish farmers were sent to new homes in rudimentary government-controlled camps along the main highways. Some were forcibly relocated to the flat and desolate landscapes of southern Iraq, including thousands of refugees from the Barzani tribal areas who returned from Iran in late 1975 under a general amnesty. In November 1975, an Iraqi official acknowledged that some fifty-thousand Kurds had been deported to the southern districts of Nasiriya and Diwaniya, although the true figure was almost certainly higher.[3] According to some other sources, 1,400 Kurdish villages were razed and around 600,000 Kurds were forcibly transferred to collective towns.

According to Human Rights Watch, from the 1991 Gulf War until 2003, the former Iraqi government systematically expelled an estimated 120,000 Kurds, Turkmens, and Assyrians from Kirkuk and other towns and villages in this oil-rich region. Most have settled in the Kurdish-controlled northern provinces. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government resettled Arab families in their place in an attempt to reduce the political power and presence of ethnic minorities, a process known as Arabization.[4] The "Arabization" of Kirkuk and other oil-rich regions is not a recent phenomenon. Successive governments have sought at various times to reduce the ethnic minority populations residing there since the discovery of significant oil deposits in the 1920s. By the mid-1970s, the Ba'ath Party government that seized power in 1968 embarked on a concerted campaign to alter the demographic makeup of multi-ethnic Kirkuk. The campaign involved the massive relocation of tens of thousands of ethnic minority families from Kirkuk, Sinjar, Khaniqin, and other areas, transferring them to purpose-built resettlement camps. This policy was intensified after the failed Kurdish uprising in March 1991.([5], [6], [7], [8], [9] and [10]) Those expelled included individuals who had refused to sign so-called "nationality correction" forms, introduced by the authorities prior to the 1997 population census, requiring members of ethnic groups residing in these districts to relinquish their Kurdish or Turkman identities and to register officially as Arabs. The Iraqi authorities also seized their property and assets; those who were expelled to areas controlled by Kurdish opposition forces were stripped of all possessions and their ration cards were withdrawn.[11]

Kirkuk after 2003

File:Kirkuk council.jpg

members of Kirkuk's city Council.

Following the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, led by American and British military forces, which drove Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Party from power, a caretaker administration was established until the creation of a democratically elected government. Since April 2003, thousands of internally displaced Kurds, Turkmens and others have returned to Kirkuk and other Arabized regions to reclaim their homes and lands which have since been occupied by Arabs from central and southern Iraq. These returnees were forcibly expelled from their homes by the government of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s and 1990s. Under the supervision of chief executive of Coalition Provisional Authority L. Paul Bremer, a convention was held in May 24, 2003 to select the first City Council in the history of this oil-rich, ethnically divided city.

Each of the city's four major ethnic groups was invited to send a 39-member delegation from which they would be allowed to select six to sit on the City Council. Another six council members were selected from among 144 delegates to represent independents social groups such as teachers, lawyers, religious leaders and artists. Kirkuk's 30 members council is made up of five blocs of six members each. Four of those blocs are formed along ethnic lines-Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and Turkmen- and the fifth is made up of independents. Turkmen and Arabs complained , however, that Kurds hold five of the seats in the independent bloc. they are also frustrated that their only representative at the council's helm is an assistant mayor whom they consider pro-Kurdish. Abdul Rahman Mustafa (Arabic: عبدالرحمن مصطفى), a Baghdad-educated lawyer was elected mayor by 20 votes to 10. The appointment of an Arab, Ismail Ahmed Rajab Al Hadidi (Arabic: اسماعيل احمد رجب الحديدي), as deputy mayor went some way towards addressing Arab concerns. Kirkuk, Iraq's biggest oil-producing city and thus a plum in the postwar redistricting, still crackles with ethnic tension despite a more functional public service network than other larger Iraqi cities. But, according to Kurds, Saddam Hussein focused his drive for Arabization of Kirkuk, ethnically engineering the Kurdish majority out of existence by expelling an estimated 250,000 Kurds from the area and giving or selling their homes to Arabs. Efforts to reverse that have brought hordes of armed young Kurds to the city at night to chase away the Arab population in a second wave of violence and ethnic-cleansing. Many people have been killed in the ensuing anti-Semitic (Arab and Assyrian) Pogroms. Kurdish leaders have appealed to their constituents to be patient and let a legal process determine property rights. [12] [13]

On June 30th2005 through a secret direct voting process with a participation of the widest communities in the province and although of all the political legal security complexes of this process all over the country generally and in Kirkuk in particular, Kirkuk has witnessed the birth of its first elected Provincial Council. The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq IECI has approved and announced the outcomes of this process, which led to fill the 41 seats of Kirkuk Provincial Council by the won lists as the followings:

367 List ( Kirkuk Brotherhood List KBL): 26 seats

175 List (Iraqi Turkmen Front ITF): 8 seats

299 List (Iraqi Republic Gathering): 5 seats

178 List (Turkmen Islamic Coalition): 1 seat

289 List (Iraqi National Gathering): 1 seat

The new KPC has started its second turn on March 6th 2005. Its augural session was dedicated to have the introduction of its new members then followed by the oath ceremony that was supervised by Judge Thahir Hamza Salman, the Head of Kirkuk Appellate Court.

A modern Arrapha

In 1948, the name Arrapha became the name of the residential area within the city of Kirkuk which was built by the North Oil Company as a settlement for its workers. This area is presently inhabited mostly by Assyrians.

Future of Kirkuk

On January 26, 2004, the Los Angeles Times quoted Barham Salih, Prime Minister for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of two main political parties controlling the Kurdish Autonomous Region in northern Iraq. Kirkuk is a benchmark by which most Kurds would define their legitimacy in Iraq, he said. "We have a claim to Kirkuk rooted in history, geography and demographics. This is a recipe for civil war if you don't do it right". However, Arabs and Turkmen feel that the Kurds only want Kirkuk for its oil and do not really have a special interest in the city itself. These groups are largely united against Kurdish claims over the city.

According to the Kurds, the conquerors of Kurdistan have tried to destroy the numerous Kurdish emirates one after the other. Apart from their historical claim for Kirkuk, the Kurds invoke Article 58 of the Administration for the state of Iraq for the transitional period, also known as Administrative Law of March 8, 2004 which is considered the interim constitution of Iraq by the now-dissolved Iraqi Governing Council. Article 58 states in part: The Iraqi Transitional Government shall act expeditious measures to remedy the injustice caused by the previous regime's practice in the demographic character of certain regions, including Kirkuk, by deporting and expelling them from their place of residence and forcing migration in and out of the region.

Ancient monuments in Kirkuk

• The Prophet Daniel's Tomb
• Al Qaysareyah Market
• The Qishla of Kirkuk
• Kirkuk Citadel
• Qal'at Jarmo

Prominent figures in Kirkuk's history

• Sheikh Rezza Talabani
• Bakr Sidqi
• Hijri Dede
• Mama Risha

Contemporary writers from Kirkuk

• Farhad Shakely
• Latif Halmat
• Kajal Ahmad
• Mahabad Qaradaghi

References

• Human Rights Watch Report: Kurdish Autonomy and Arabization, 1993
• Human Rights Developments in Government-controlled Iraq, 2001
• IRAQ: PEOPLE COME FIRST, 2003
• International Humanitarian Law Issues In A Potential War In Iraq, 2003
• Amnesty International Report: Decades of human rights abuse in Iraq, 2003
• Reversing Arabization of Kirkuk, 2004
• Iraq: In Kurdistan, Land Disputes Fuel Unrest, 2004
• Insurgents stir up strife in Kirkuk
• Kurds flee Iraqi town, March 15, 2003; named Kurds' preferred capital
• Key Targets in Iraq, Anthony H. Cordesman, CSIS, February 1998; information about the oil resources and facilities
• Brief Summary of Kirkuk History
• Kirkuk in Old Ages
• Numerous research about Kirkuk

See also

• List of places in Iraq

35°28′N 44°24′E