Kirkuk at the heart of Iraq election law deadlock

updated 5:30 p.m. ET Nov. 1, 2009

BAGHDAD - Iraqi politicians are dueling with new hostility over the fate of Kirkuk, the oil-rich city that both self-ruled Kurds in the north and Iraq's central government want to control.

The dispute has caused a deadlock over an election law, threatening to delay Iraq's nationwide elections set for mid-January. Any vote setback could, in turn, disrupt American plans to withdraw troops from Iraq, scheduled to ramp up after the vote.

"The problem is that we are getting to a crisis," said Marina Ottoway, director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "They have been trying for over a year to reach a compromise on Kirkuk."

"Now," she warns, "it is becoming a problem for the United States. ... There is real pressure on the U.S. military to draw down as soon as possible."

For generations, tensions have simmered over Kirkuk and its surrounding province of about 1.3 million people, 180 miles north of Baghdad. Boasting a citadel believed to date to 800 B.C. or earlier, Kirkuk is in many ways an ordinary, if somewhat shabby, Iraqi city.

But it sits on a political and cultural fault line among ethnic Kurds and smaller groups of ethnic Arabs and Turkomen, or ethnic Turks. Vast oil fields, dotted with flaming smoke stacks, lie just to the north and west — raising the stakes.

Vying for control
Kurds consider Kirkuk a Kurdish city and want it part of their self-ruled region. But during the rule of former dictator Saddam Hussein, tens of thousands of Kurds were displaced under a forced plan by Saddam to make Kirkuk predominantly Arab.

Regaining control of the city is thus extremely symbolic for Kurds and many Kurds have returned since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But other groups claim Kurds have packed more Kurds into the city than before.

The population breakdown remains in dispute but U.S. officials estimated last spring that Kurds make up 52 percent of Kirkuk and its province, with Arabs at 35 percent and Turkomen about 12 percent.

The Arab-led central government vehemently opposes anything that would remove Kirkuk from its control. A referendum on the city's future — required by the Iraqi constitution — has been repeatedly postponed. The Turkomen have generally sided with Arabs, believing they'll be treated better than under the Kurds, a longtime enemy of their Turkish supporters.

The immediate dispute centers on voting rolls listing who can vote in Kirkuk in the January national election. That has delayed the necessary deal on the election law.

Long-term, money also plays a role. Because of the surrounding oil, whoever controls Kirkuk stands to benefit enormously.

The Kurdish-Arab dispute over Kirkuk is different from Iraq's main political dispute between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs, which plays out more in the capital of Baghdad and surrounding areas.

The Sunni-Shiite split has less relevance in Kirkuk where both Kurds and Arabs are mostly Sunni Muslims. There, the fear among Arabs — both Sunnis and Shiites — is that Kurds will gobble up all jobs and government benefits if Kirkuk joins Kurdistan.

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