(C) KIRKUK TURKOMAN DIVIDED ON ARTICLE 140, FUTURE STATUS OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIRKUK 000137 SIPDIS SIPDIS BAGHDAD FOR POL, POLMIL, NCT, IRMO E.O. 12958: DECL: 8/2/2016 TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PINS PNAT PREF PREL KDEM IZ TU SUBJECT: (C) KIRKUK TURKOMAN DIVIDED ON ARTICLE 140, FUTURE STATUS OF KIRKUK REF: KIRKUK 00000123 KIRKUK 00000137 001.2 OF 003 CLASSIFIED BY: Jim Bigus, PRT Leader, POL, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY: Turkoman political leaders from different blocs said on July 26 they do not agree on the issues of implementation of Article 140 and the future status of Kirkuk. In separate meetings bloc leaders from the Iraqi Turkoman Front (ITF) and the Iraqi Turkoman National Gathering (ITNG) told IPAOs the key disagreement was whether Kirkuk should be an autonomous federated region or should join the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). END INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY. (C) ITF - REFERENDUM ON KIRKUK MUST BE NATION-WIDE -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) Leaders of the ITF bloc in Kirkuk told IPAOs on July 26, 2006, that the Turkoman of the ITF bloc and the mostly Sunni Arabs of the Iraqi National Gathering bloc were unified on their position on Article 140. They said implementation of Article 140 must be under international supervision and that there must be equal representation of Arabs, Turkoman, and Kurds on the committee to normalize Kirkuk and implement Article 140. The ITF representatives also said the referendum on Kirkuk's final status must be decided on a national level and not limited to residents of Kirkuk city or province. (C) KIRKUK SHOULD BE AUTONOMOUS, KURDS STALLING IPCC CLAIMS -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) The ITF leaders said Kirkuk should remain its own autonomous region and should not be incorporated into the KRG administered areas. They said the Kurds and other advocates of returning districts and sub-districts detached under Saddam to Kirkuk Province were ignoring that Chamchamal, for example, was part of Sulaymaniyah prior to the British occupation following World War One. The ITF representatives added they had met with the IPCC head, Ahmad Barak, during their recent trip to Baghdad for the purpose of arguing their position on Article 140. They claimed Barak told them over 10,000 IPCC claims, many of them Turkoman, remained unprocessed because the two Kurdish representatives to the IPCC in Baghdad refused to sign them. (Note: Kirkuk IPCC head, Kamal Jamal, told IPAOs on June 25 that the two Kurdish representatives to the IPCC in Baghdad refused to assume their positions due to security concerns (Ref. Kirkuk 000123). The IPCC was recently renamed the Commission for Resolution of Real Property Disputes (CRRPD). End note.) (C) NON-ITF PARTIES DOMINATED BY KURDS -------------- ¶4. (C) The ITF members claimed that Turkoman who broke with the ITF were dominated by Kurds, were only concerned with pushing Article 140 forward, and did not care about Turkoman problems. The ITF leaders claimed the Kurdish Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC) Chair, Rizgar Ali, wrote a recent letter that was signed by ITNG members and sent to the ITF. The letter criticized the ITF media for inciting ethnic violence by blaming the Kurds for the 1959 violence against the Turkoman of Kirkuk. (Note: The Communist Party and Turkoman political groups of Kirkuk clashed in July, 1959, with the Turkoman suffering the majority of casualties. The Kirkuk Turkoman community frequently refers to this event as the "Turkoman Massacre" and places blame on the Kurds, due to the fact that 24 of the 28 convicted of perpetrating the violence were Kurds. End note.) (C) NO MILITIA, NO POWER -------------- ¶5. (C) The ITF leaders said it was becoming increasingly clear to Turkoman that the reason the Kurds held sway in government was that they had a militia where the Turkoman and other parties did not, and that only parties with militias could succeed in Iraq's current political system. They pointed to Baghdad's recent offer to enter negotiations with terrorist groups as an example of how arms can be used successfully to gain political leverage and capital. (C) ITNG - "KURDISTAN REGION IS THE TURKOMAN REGION" -------------- -------------- ¶6. (C) The non-ITF, ITNG representatives in a separate meeting told IPAO on July 26, 2006, that it was in Turkoman interests to join the Kurdish region because they could not win against the Shia who were determined to dominate the south and the rest of Iraq. The ITNG leaders said the Kurds had assisted and welcomed the Turkoman during the oppressions of the Saddam regime and claimed because of this Turkoman viewed Kurdistan as a Turkoman region. They said the national constitution guaranteed the rights of Turkoman as a "nation" and that it was illegal to disconnect districts and sub-districts without the consent of the governed. Saddam had acted illegally when he disconnected districts from Kirkuk Province, the ITNG members claimed, and KIRKUK 00000137 002.2 OF 003 yet this was exactly what the ITF and Arabs were proposing for Kirkuk when they insisted it be an autonomous federated region. The ITNG member said it was preferable for the Turkoman to exist as a "second nation" within the KRG, where their rights would be secured, than to remain the "third nation" in Iraq. (C) ITF CREATING BAD BLOOD BETWEEN TURKOMAN AND KURDS -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) The ITNG members claimed the ITF media was creating bad blood between Turkoman and Kurds and expressed concern that killing based on ethnic-party association could occur as it did in 1959. The representatives added that the approach of the ITF to Article 140 reflected their connection to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. The ITNG leaders claimed the Turkish government was determined to undermine the normalization process in Kirkuk, and that the ITF continued to receive one million USD from Turkey to support various ITF media. (C) BIOGRPAHIC NOTES ON ATTENDING ITF LEADERS -------------- ¶8. (C) Hasan Turan Said: Sunni Turkoman; won election to the KPC as part of the ITF list in January, 2005; born in Kirkuk city, 1964; began working in political affairs in 1982; one of the founding members of the Iraqi Turkoman Justice Party, which was organized after the liberation of the Kurdish areas in 1991 and represents Sunni Turkoman; current spokesman for the Justice Party; head of the Turkoman Agricultural Engineers Association; assistant to the Secretary General of the Turkoman Council of Iraq; the Turkoman Justice Party is regarded as the second largest party in the ITF coalition after the Turkoman Eli Party. ¶9. (C) Younis Qadir Ismael Biraqdar: Chairman of the Turkoman Council of Iraq; born Kirkuk, 1953; former KPC member; worked as an electrical engineer; received Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering; former lecturer at the College of Engineering and Hewija Technical Institute; former head of the Engineers Union under Saddam; worked as engineer consultant in the private sector. (Note: the other two, younger ITF representatives frequently deferred to Biraqdar during the meeting to express the official Turkoman position on specific issues. End note.) ¶10. (C) Turham Mudhir Hassan al-Mufti: Shia Turkoman; member of the Turkoman Independent Movement; born in Kirkuk city; won a seat on the KPC as part of the ITF list in January, 2005; received his doctorate in Geochemistry; works as a Remote Sensing Engineer at the Northern Oil Company; wife was kidnapped in 2005 and returned after Mufti paid ransom. (C) BIOGRAPHIC NOTES ON ATTENDING ITNG LEADERS -------------- - ¶11. (C) Mouyad Namiq Shakir: Sunni Turkoman; born in Kirkuk; member of the Turkoman Peoples' Party (TPP),founded in Erbil in 1987, but moved to Sulaymaniyah in 1996 when Saddam returned to Erbil; won seat on the KPC as part of the Kurd-dominated Kirkuk Brotherhood List; heads KPC Security Committee; head of De-Bathification Committee; member of the TPP Central Committee; heads the TPP's Information and Relations Bureau; received Bachelor's Degree in Law and is a practicing lawyer. ¶12. (C) Mofaq Mohammed Qoryali: Sunni Turkoman; born in Kirkuk, 1957; Secretary General of the Turkoman al-Shrooq ("Sunrise") Party, founded in 1999 and represents Sunni Turkoman; according to Qoryali, the, party attracts women and student unions; his father opposed the former regime, resulting in his family being expelled by Saddam. ¶13. (C) Saif al-Din Damrichi (Dr.): Secretary General of the Turkoman Union Party (TUP),which was founded in exile; lived 17 years in exile until OIF; two administrative bodies govern the TUP, the Central Committee with 13 party members,and the Politburo with 16 members. ¶14. (C) Ali Sharika: Representative for the Kirkuk branch of the Turkoman Brotherhood Party (TBP),founded in 1989 in response to Saddam's pressure on ethnic groups in Kirkuk; after 1991 TBP started operating in the Kurdish liberated areas; TBP worked closely with the KDP and PUK, with offices in Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk. (U) COMMENT -------------- ¶15. (C) ITNG representatives noted that their parties, along with all other political parties in the Kurdish areas, received financial support from the KRG Ministry of Finance, which probably influences the official position of the ITNG on Article KIRKUK 00000137 003.2 OF 003 140 and the future status of Kirkuk. IPAO's past meetings with Turkoman leaders would indicate that the ITNG represents mostly Sunni Turkoman and that it exercises limited influence within the Kirkuk Brotherhood List. The ITNG likely reflects the official Kurdish stance on key issues, while most Turkoman parties not belonging to the ITF bloc probably would agree with its position on Article 140 and Kirkuk becoming an autonomous province. JBIGUS