How the Turkmens are being dispossessed of their Properties and Lands in the north of IraqPersonal examples:
The lands of my husband's family (mother's side) in LEYLEN (number 32 in the table below) are occupied by Kurds since 2003 and the properties and lands of his family (father's side) in BESHIR (number 22 in the table below), for which they hold the deeds dating from Ottoman time, have been confiscated and are occupied by Arabs since 1986.
The Records of Census of Population and Land in Kerkuk subdivision at the time of Sultan Suleiman The Magnificent (*) clearly demonstrate that the region was overwhelmingly inhabited by Turkmens.Below are notes by Prof. Dr M. Akif ERDOGRU who made some research in the Ottoman Archives:Prof. Dr. M. Akif Erdogru of
Aegean University, History Section of Faculty of Letters, Historical Studies Periodical
Volume xıx, Number 2
December 2004, pp 186-189A NOTE ON THE POPULATION DISTRIBUTION OF KIRKUK SUBDIVISIONSince the U.S.occupation of Iraq in 2003, a lot of theses and publications were made regarding Kirkuk being a 'Kurdish city' both in domestic and foreign press. It is clear however that these claims are conflicting with the reality.A census of population and of land in the Kirkuk subdivision, which concerned the cities of Dakuk and Kirkuk, was published by the General Directorate of State Archives under the name of “Detailed Writing Book of Kirkuk Subdivision numbered as 111 (Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent time), the General Directorate of State Archives, Ankara 2003”.
This precious source was preserved in the archives of the General Directorate of Title-deeds at the Cadastre of Turkey, it was the only detailed census of population and land made for Kirkuk and Dakuk. The General Directorate of State Archives did a very appropriate and useful study by submitting this census to the scientific world. At least interested parties at that time were reminded of the Turkish and Muslim cities of Kirkuk and Dakuk together with their environments.
As it was known, these regions have a special importance for Turks and Muslim people, because places of worship, dervish lodges and tombs of numerous Turkish and Muslim leaders are found in this area. There were small dervish lodges in the area such as Imam Ismael, Imam Mohammad Seydhi Hattali, Imam Zeynelabidin, Salbartu, and Sheikh Mekkhi who was the standard bearer of Prophet Mohammad, Nure, Father Zhunun, Sheikh Majidee Kurevi, and many descendants from Prophet Mohammad's family.
Not only were these regions sacred for Anatolian Muslims but also for Muslims and Turks living in Iran. There were many historical associations to Shah Ismael in the region. It should also be noted that this region continuously changed owners during the skirmishes between Ottomans and Iranians but that no radical changes occurred in the ethnic and religious components.
The population of Kirkuk and Dakuk and their surrounding villages were mainly constituted from Muslim Turks, the names recorded in the census indicate that these were the Shiite Turcoman people who had relationship with Iran and Eastern Anatolia.
Arabs and Kurds were rarely mentioned in this census and their numerical proportion was under 1%. Non-Muslim people (Christians and Jews) also lived in some places in this region. In those years, in Kirkuk city centre there were 183 houses of Muslim-Turks, 104 houses of Jews and 53 houses of Christians. There was no mention of Kurds and Arabs.
In Tercil village 43 Jewish houses were mentioned.
There were 35 Christian families in Dakuk's Kilise village, while in the centre of Dakuk their number was only 18.
In those days both Kirkuk and Dakuk, with the said figures, appeared as proper Muslim Turkish cities and the presence of some Christians, Jews, Arabs and Kurds had no effect on the two cities and on their surrounding villages.
The overwhelming majority of the people using the hamlets and high plateaus around the cities were Shiite Turcoman people.
The said census, likewise, gives information about these semi-nomads: Turkish tribe Lek, Mongol-Turkish tribe Sulduz, Turkish tribe Doger, Turkish tribe Karaca Bayad, Azerbaijan-Turkish tribe Gilevan, Turkish tribe Black Mansur, Azerbaijan-Turkish tribe Zengene and many subdivisions of it which were settled in the area, and Central Asian Turkish tribe Nilkaz were among these big groups. Especially the Kalender Beg, Kulu Kethuda and Kethuda Shah Ali congregations connected to Zengene heavily used Kirkuk and Dakuk regions in the 1560s.
Besides these, there were also semi-nomadic Turkish tribes with their cattle grazing in Iran and Anatolia but registered in this region. There was no mention of Kurdish tribes among them.
I should point out that a few Kurdish families were registered in the Kirkuk-Jewish congregation. The religious structure of the region is shown in the table below.
The entire Muslim population was constituted from Turcoman people.
TABLE: Population of Kirkuk Subdivision in 1560
(Source: Detailed Writing Book of Kirkuk Subdivision, Ankara 2003)
Dakuk Region
Muslim houses - Christian houses - Jewish houses
1. Dakuk center 259 18 -
2. Mutık village 34 - -
3. Dumanli village 158 - -
4. Bozdepe village 11 - -
5. Kushtan village 100 - -
6. Iftihar village 51 - -
7. Sheik Kendi village 38 - -
8. Lasun village 1 - -
9. Ashagi Arab Kendi village 34 - -
10.Yukari Arab Kendi village 39 - -
11. Ali Sarayi village 82 - -
12. Cedie-i Babilan village 54 - -
13. Tuz Hurmati village 229 - -
14. Babilan village 119 - -
15. Bassaa village 5 - -
16. Chisghan village 32 - -
17. Cedide village 16 - -
Kirkuk Region
Muslim houses - Christian houses - Jewish houses
18. Kirkuk center 183 53 104
19. Cherbeklu village 30 - -
20. Meraga village 57 - -
21. Ramadanniye village 33 - -
22. Beshir village 89 - -
23. Cemaliyye village 52 - -
24. Hurmati-yi Tezek village 104 - -
25. Shemsiyye village 56 - -
26. Tis’in village 93 - -
27. Uch Kubbe village 24 - -
28. Pulava village 71 - -
29. Hajji Pusek village 30 - -
30. Tercil village 242 - 43
31. Karalar village 18 - -
32. Leylen village 218 - -
33. Yahya Abad village 67 - -
34. Dephelu village 127 - -
35. Furkan village 60 - -
36.Bari Abad village 45 - -
37. Yarimca village 26 - -
38. Gokdan village 101 - -
39. Telkeshkhan village 77 - -
40. Duhala village 23 - -
41. Kara Hasan village 34 - -
42. Helmin village 100 - -
43. Kuriyye village 1 70 -
44. Kushchu village 11 - -
Nilkhaz Region
Muslim houses - Christian houses - Jewish houses
45. Agcalar village 73 - -
46. Chur-I Dizek village 64 - -
47. Metfak village 56 - -
48. Suslu village 25 - -
49. Keritan village 12 - -
50. Mahmad village 59 - -
51. Gokdepe village 65 - -
52. Chuchurd-I Kuchuk village 59 - -
53. Tulekdan village 46 - -
54. Shud Komu village 122 - -
55. Babik village 68 - -
56. Gulluce village 59 - -
57. Kazan Otagi village 34 - -
58. Kadi Kendi village 60 - -
59.Gurculer village 11 - -
60. Melik Kendi village 62 - -
61. Kurd Deligi village 26 - -
62. Kellebash village 23 - -
63. Abdal village 53 - -
64. Kalender village 38 - -
65. Omar Kamu village 8 - -
66. Sivritash village 9 - -
67. Gechine village 28 - -
68. Kapchikay village 61 - -
69. Evcush village 329 - -
70. Baura village 60 - -
Taxes of a few villages were assigned to Mecca foundation. On the economical side, Kirkuk and Dakuk were the income resources for Ottoman treasure. Water mills, people dealing with the water works, onion fields, cattle, grain, vineyards, vegetables, houses and some crafts in Dakuk were under tax. Ispenche tax was applied to Jews and Christians. Military importance of Kirkuk citadel was low. Houses, cloth weavers, tailors, cattle, grain, vineyards, mills, transit commercial trade were subject to taxes under various names. Tax rates were extremely heavy i.e. in the proportions of 1/7 and 1/8 according to some places of Anatolia. The two most important tax sources among them were onion fields and cotton seeds (cevzeka-i penbe).
The Directorate of Archives as well as the publishing of this study remind us that Kirkuk and Dakuk have been Turkish and Muslim regions for many centuries.
(*) Suleiman Kanuni (The Lawgiver) known as "Suleiman The Magnificent" in the West
was born in 1494 and died in 1566.
------
Further reading:
Effects of U.K. and U.S. Unilateralism on the Turkmens of Iraq since World War I
By Dr Hassan Aydinli
Excerpt
As an Iraqi Turkmen I would like to bring to your attention the plight of the 3 million Turkmens of Iraq who are not only the victims of US-UK imperialism but also of Kurdish hegemony in the north of Iraq since the 10th April 2003.
The 3 million Turkmens of Iraq represent 12% of the Iraqi population; they have lived in Iraq for over a millennium. The last reliable census data from Iraq, gathered in 1957, identifies the Turkmens as the third largest ethnic group in Iraq. In the north of Iraq Turkmens represent the second main ethnic group.
Iraqi Turkmens are the descendants of the Turkic Oghuz tribes of Central Asia who migrated in successive waves between the 7th and the 13th century to the west of their territories up to Anatolia and Mesopotamia (Iraq), they settled mainly in the northern and central regions of Iraq, in a diagonal strip of land stretching from the Syrian and Turkish border areas around the city of Tal Afar in the north-west of Iraq to the town of Mendeli on the Iranian border in Central Iraq, they are found principally in the following provinces: Kerkuk, Mosul, Erbil, Salah-al-Din, Diyala, Kut and Baghdad.
Since many centuries the largest Turkmen population concentration is in the city of Kerkuk which is considered by the Iraqi Turkmens as their capital city and main cultural centre.The Turkmen region in Iraq, called TURKMENELI, lies between the region inhabited by Kurds in the north and the region inhabited by Arabs in the South.Turkmens have largely contributed to the political and cultural life in Iraq during the Abassids, Seljuks, Atabegs, etc. They established their own states and Emirates in Iraq and ruled the country or parts of it for nine centuries (from 1055 to 1918).
Iraqi Turkmen communities rose to prominence as administrators, merchants and politicians in particular under the Ottoman Empire.The discrimination against the Turkmens in Iraq, their marginalization, the denial of their historical role and achievements in Iraq and the denial of their true representation as the third largest ethnic group in Iraq have been initiated by the British colonial authorities at the end of World War I in 1918, for geopolitical and economical reasons.
The British purposely underestimated the number of Turkmens to facilitate the separation of ‘Mosul Vilayat’ or ‘Mosul Province’ (now representing five Iraqi provinces: Mosul, Kerkuk, Erbil, Duhok and Suleymaniya) from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) in order to control the huge oil reserves of Kerkuk which was then mainly inhabited by Turkmens.
Since Iraq became an independent state in 1921 the successive Iraqi governments have continued to undermine and marginalize the Turkmens for the same geopolitical and economical reasons. Under the previous regime the Turkmens have been victims of discrimination, deportation and property confiscation.
Today, four and a half years after the invasion and the occupation of Iraq by the US-UK forces, the 3 million Turkmens of Iraq continue to suffer from discrimination, marginalisation, ill-treatment and basic human rights violations and their ordeal continues as they are caught between hammer and anvil.
Indeed, the Turkmens continue to be constitutionally discriminated, institutionally marginalized and ill-treated as a community in Iraq by the political parties, who have been promoted and brought into power by the occupation forces.
The Kurdish political parties and their allies, who are dominating Iraqi politics since the occupation of the country in April 2003, have agreed - for strictly partisan reasons - to continue suppressing the Turkmens’ rights and their true representation in Iraq.They continue denying the Turkmens the constitutional rights to be recognised as a main community of the country with rights equal to those granted to the Arabs and the Kurds in the new constitution of Iraq.
Since the occupation of Iraq in April 2003 the foreign occupation authorities administered the country by decree then by a “Provisional Administration Law” which was not approved by the Iraqi people. It became a Constitutional Law on 15th October 2005.
The contents and approval method of this Constitutional Law are debatable. The mistakes which had been made in the Provisional Administration Law regarding the Turkmens have been repeated in the new “permanent” constitution and the rights of the Turkmens continue to be openly usurped.
The Turkmens reject the new regime’s discriminatory policy, they have called for the boycott of the parliamentary elections under the occupation, and they have called to vote against the new constitution written under the occupation.
For all the above mentioned reasons the Turkmens have persistently called for the revision of the new Iraqi Constitution in order to obtain the constitutional rights for their community to be recognised as the third main community of Iraq as well as for the recognition of the Turkmen citizens’ basic human rights in Iraq as citizens of a multi-ethnic country with rights equal to those recognised to the Arabs and the Kurds.
The Turkmens, in addition to their share of misery and humiliation resulting from the foreign occupation of Iraq, also suffer since this occupation and because of it from the Kurdish hegemony in the north of Iraq and from the occupation and kurdification of their towns and cities by the Kurdish militias who are behaving as conquerors.
In order to change the demographics of Kerkuk in view of the upcoming census and referendum called for by Article 140 of the new constitution, the Kurdish political parties of Messrs Talabani and Barzani have organized the transport of over 600.000 Kurds from the Kurdish autonomous region as well as from neighbouring Syria, Turkey and Iran to Kerkuk. These ‘newly arrived Kurds’ have been given financial support and incentives, they have been issued forged identification cards and documents showing them as Kurds originally from Kerkuk who had been forcefully displaced by the former regime.
I would like to point out that the Swedish authorities have accused the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm early this year of having issued some 26. 000 forged Iraqi passport to citizens from Syria, Turkey and Iran, similar accusations have been made in Vienna, Damascus, etc.These cheatings and falsifications of the official records concerning the forcibly displaced Kurds from Kerkuk and the issuing of forged identification cards to these 600.000 Kurds newly installed in Kerkuk have been facilitated by the fact that the Kurdish militias (Peshmerga) looted the Population and the Property Registration Offices of Kerkuk and confiscated the archives and records on the first day they entered and occupied Kerkuk on the 10th April 2003, one day after the occupation of Baghdad, with the blessings of the U.S. occupier and as a reward for their collaboration during the invasion of Iraq.
In this regard it is important to note that:- according to the ration card data base, considered by the United Nations to be a reliable source for information on the Iraqi population, some 12.000 families (Turkmens and Kurds) were expelled from Kerkuk under the previous regime, one third being Turkmens.- until April 10, 2003, Kerkuk had 810.000 inhabitants and that today, after four and a half years of Kurdish control over Kerkuk its population is estimated to be over 1.5 million inhabitants, and that ALL the newcomers are Kurds.Today, citing ‘Article 140’ of the constitution, the Kurds insist to start the ‘normalization process’ in Kerkuk Province. But their interpretation of ‘normalization’ is to establish Kurdish hegemony in a region of Iraq which is inhabited by Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds and which has never been part of ‘Kurdistan’. This is in order to implement the American-Israeli plan to divide Iraq in three regions, it has nothing to do with democracy or justice, it is simply a way to steal Iraq’s oil from the Iraqi people by allowing their Kurdish ‘allies’ to annex Kerkuk to the Kurdish Autonomous Region, and subsequently proclaim their independence, in view of the creation of a “Greater Kurdistan”, following the example of the Zionists plans for a “Greater Israel”.
These unfair and illegal methods practiced by the Kurds in Kerkuk will lead to disaster if they are not stopped and remedied before a census which will decide on the fate of the city.It should also be noted that the CIA and the U.S. Special Forces armed and supported thousands of Kurdish Peshmerga troops to fight against the Iraqi forces in 2003 and that British Special Forces and the Israeli Mossad are training the Kurdish commandos in the north of Iraq.
Turkmens are constantly targeted in Iraq by the Kurdish militias, by the militias belonging to some extremist parties, by foreign terrorist groups operating in the north of Iraq and by the U.S. occupation forces.
They have suffered a great number of casualties as a consequence of attacks on their community in Amirli, Altun Kopru, Beshir, Kerkuk, Tavik, Taza, Telafer, Tisin, Tuz Hurmato, etc. Furthermore, in order to silence them the Turkmens are now being subjected to death threats, property and land confiscations, imprisonment, torture, kidnappings and assassinations. Hundreds of Turkmens have been arrested and thousands of them have been killed.Turkmens are the only community in Iraq which does not have weapons and militias; they are seeking to obtain their rights by democratic and peaceful means, but because they do not have militias they are very vulnerable and the existence of their community is contested and its future in Iraq is seriously endangered.
As true Iraqi patriots the Turkmens are strongly opposed to the balkanisation of Iraq, they consider that the disputed city of Kerkuk should have a special status, as the fate of the city is vital for all of Iraq and a planned referendum on its status should be held across the country, not in Kerkuk only as intended now.
The Turkmens declare that Kerkuk is an Iraqi city and all the people of Iraq should decide on its fate. A referendum to be held only in Kerkuk would not be acceptable and valid since it is extremely easy to manipulate election results in the city. The issue of Kerkuk's status is potentially explosive for Iraq, and ethnic conflict over the city could spark violent clashes and even a civil war across Iraq, that could eventually lead to disintegration of the country.
The Turkmens of Iraq want a free, united and democratic Iraq, where all Iraqis: Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Chaldeo-Assyrians and others, live in harmony and peace. They are calling upon the international community and all peace loving people to support the Iraqi people in their struggle to liberate their country from the occupation and to obtain just compensation for all the moral and material damages they have suffered.
Dr. Hassan T. Walli Aydinli
Committee for the Defence of the Iraqi Turkmens’ Rights – Belgium
December 2007.
