KURDISH ARROGANCE IN IRAQ

Kurdish Arrogance in Iraq
Nermeen Al-Mufti
12 April 2007

"If they (the Turks) interfere in Kirkuk over just thousands of Turkmens then we will take action for the 30 million Kurds in Turkey."Thus spoke Massoud Barzani in an interview with Al- Arabiya TV last Saturday. It is not the first time an Iraqi Kurdish leader states that the Iraqi Turks (the Turkmens) are thousands! Turkmens were 560,000 according to 1957 census, when the whole Iraqi population was about 6 millions. After 50 years, the Kurds who were 13% of the Iraqis according to the same census and 17% according to the 1997 census, became 30% of the total Iraqi population, while Turkmens evaporated to constitute only thousands.

So one could not be astonished when heard of Barzani saying the Kurdish population in Turkey has increased to 30 millions. However the international statistics assure that the population of the Kurds all over the world is about 35 millions.

Under the American occupation, the only "winners" in Iraq are the Kurds, as Bremer said in his book "My Year in Iraq." Days before the Barzani interview and threats to Turkey, Mohammed Ihsan, a Kurdish minister for human rights in the Barzani led regional government, threatened in a press conference those who are opposing the referendum in Kirkuk saying, "who will hinder (the referendum) will pay a high price, whoever will be."

Ihsan admitted in the same conference that the Kurds "are continuing their pressure" toward applying the article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution, stating the normalization in Kirkuk and the referendum. Kurds are trying their best toward confiscating not only Turkmens' rights but the whole Iraqis'.

They are occupying many key positions in Iraq and in the Iraqi embassies, using these positions in order to achieve their illusion of a Kurdish state.

On March 26 and 27, Turkmens, aided by UNPO and European Liberal Democrats, held a conference in Brussels over the Turkmen rights and crisis in Kirkuk.The Kurdish representative in the European Parliament, Burhan Jaf, was invited. He tried to defend his leaders' allegation that Kirkuk is a "Kurdish" city and Turkmens enjoy full rights in so called Iraqi Kurdistan, saying that there are Turkmen Cabinet ministers and Parliament members in the regional government because Turkmens are the second largest ethnic group in northern Iraq after the Kurds.

There are two (Turkmen) ministers and four members in Parliament: It is all what is meant by (full) rights. Comparing these rights with the rights of the Kurds, the second largest ethnic group in Iraq, one could discover that the Kurdish leaders offer nothing to Turkmens but allegations.

The Iraqi president is a Kurd, deputy speaker is a Kurd, deputy prime minister is a Kurd, many key ministries are occupied by Kurds. But there is no Turkmen in such positions in the northern regional government.

Yet the Kurdish leaders are asking Turkmens to recognize the appointed two ministers and four parliamentarians whom they did not elect.

Along the 35 years of the former regime, there were a Kurdish vice president, many Kurdish ministers; among them was Ubaidullah Barzani, 25 members in the Iraqi National Assembly in addition to the Kurdish autonomous authorities; yet the two leading Kurdish parties PUK and KDP refused to recognize them because they were appointed by the government and not elected by them.

Kurds have the rights to oppose, demand and threaten, while Turkmens have not the same rights. Iraqi Kurds who are supported by the occupation forces are becoming more arrogant, yet the day in which logic will rule in Iraq seems to be not far.

http://www.thenewanatolian.com/opinion-25359.html