PRT KIRKUK: ITF MONOPOLIZES TURKMAN VOICES, BLOCKS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 002980 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/04/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM IZ SUBJECT: PRT KIRKUK: ITF MONOPOLIZES TURKMAN VOICES, BLOCKS POLITICAL RECONCILIATION REF: A. BAGHDAD 1304 ¶B. BAGHDAD 754 Classified By: PRT Kirkuk Team Leader Howard Keegan for reason 1.4(d) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. Though claiming to speak for all of Kirkuk's Turkman community, the Iraqi Turkman Front (ITF) represents only a hardline minority and itself suffers internally due to the ideological inflexibility of its leadership. Despite this, the ITF enforces among the members of the Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC)'s Turkman bloc an uncompromising stance that has blocked political reconciliation in the form of a solution to the ten-month-long boycott Arab-Turkman boycott of the KPC. END SUMMARY. -------------- -------------- STIFLING UNIFORMITY IN THE ITF-LED TURKMAN PC BLOC... -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) In recent weeks, PRT Kirkuk has stepped up its engagement with the Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC)'s Turkman bloc as part of a new PRT initiative to end the ten-month-long boycott of KPC sessions by its Turkman and Arab blocs (reftels). Though only four are Iraqi Turkman Front (ITF) members, eight of the nine in the KPC Turkman bloc ran on the ITF list in January 2005 Provincial elections, and they continue to share and recite ITF talking points to demonstrate a unified front. Their most vocal spokesman is Turkman Eli Party Deputy Chairman Ali Mehdi Siddiq, who monopolizes bloc meetings, feeds talking points to bloc members, and regularly releases press statements (carried in well-funded Turkman-language media) that antagonize Kirkuk's other communities. Though he insists that he is not an ITF member, this is a distinction without a difference, as he effectively pushes the ITF agenda while dominating the Turkman bloc. ¶3. (C) More moderate and flexible members of the Turkman bloc (especially its three Shia members, who have a good relationship with other ethnic communities) routinely recite the same ITF points, but without conviction. Privately, they concede that ten months of boycotting have achieved nothing for Kirkuk's Turkman community, and they want to end it. They resent the ITF and Ali Mehdi's dominance of the bloc and say that the bloc suffers considerable internal stress because all of its members must support bloc positions, which are determined by majority vote; that is, four ITF members plus Ali Mehdi effectively determine what the Turkman bloc, speaking on behalf of Kirkuk's Turkman community, will say. However, these moderates will not depart from the bloc's line for fear they will be excluded from the ITF list )- and thus lose the benefits of ITF funding and organization -- in the next Provincial election. -------------- ...AND WITHIN THE ITF... -------------- ¶4. (C) The PRT and other CF units also have reengaged the ITF leadership. Led by National Chairman (and member of Iraq's Council of Representatives) Saladeen Argec (who had recently completed a lobbying and media trip to the U.S. to publicize ITF positions, especially on Kirkuk's future),the ITF took an inflexible position on the KPC boycott, reciting a long list of grievances and dubious assertions to justify unrealistic demands. Saladeen also accused CF of favoring Kurdish interests and supporting a Kurdish-dominated Kirkuk. In a subsequent meeting, following back-channel warnings, Saladeen tamed his rhetoric somewhat, but continued to take a hard line on the boycott, citing the need to "save face" before the Turkman community. ¶5. (C) While more moderate members of the ITF leadership have supported Saladeen in public, in private they have complained about Saladeen and his leadership of the ITF. Kirkuk and Salah ad Din ITF Chairman Ali Hashem and Diyala ITF Chairman Osama Nazem confided their frustration that "nothing positive" had come from the KPC boycott, adding that the ITF membership was severely demoralized and unsure of how to proceed, but still loyal to Saladeen. They said that Saladeen, who spends most of his time in Baghdad or Turkey, was "living behind the walls of the Green Zone" and "out of touch with the realities of Kirkuk." They requested PRT assistance to open a dialogue with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party. ¶6. (C) Pointing to Turkish Government funding for the ITF (USD 600,000 per month, according to moderate Turkman PRT contacts),Kirkuklis of all communities believe that the ITF represents Ankara's opinion rather than that of the Province's Turkman community. Despite its dominance of the PC's Turkman bloc and Turkman media, moderate Turkman contacts report that the ITF has the support of only 10-30 BAGHDAD 00002980 002 OF 003 percent of Kirkuk's Turkman population. They complain that Saladeen actually lost the last ITF leadership election to its previous Chairman, Farook Abdallah; however, the Turkish Government, preferring the hardliner Saladeen to the moderate Farook, threatened to withhold funding for the ITF if Saladeen were not installed as its Chairman. (NOTE: Farook, the son of a prominent Iraq Army General executed by Communists in 1959, then broke with the ITF and currently serves as a special advisor to Iraqi PM Maliki for Turkman affairs.) ¶7. (C) According to contacts in the local PUK and KDP organizations, following the recent election victory in the Turkey of the Justice and Development Party (AKP in its Turkish acronym),the AKP will transfer responsibility for the ITF from Turkish military intelligence to the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MIT in its Turkish acronym). These Kurdish contacts believe that, because the AKP controls the MIT and counts on Kurdish support in the Turkish government, the result will be a more moderate ITF. However, the PRT has been unable to confirm the transfer and has detected no softening of the ITF line. In recent press comments on the current round of KPC boycott negotiations, ITF Ankara representative Ahmet Muratli reiterated unrealistic ITF demands that were even harder than those of the local ITF. -------------- ...PREVENTS PROGRESS ON THE KPC BOYCOTT -------------- ¶8. (C) Following intense PRT pressure on all of the KPC's blocs to resume negotiations based on realism and compromise, the Kurdish-led majority bloc, the Kirkuk Brotherhood List (KBL),recently proposed a new agreement to address the concerns of the KPC's Arab and Turkman blocs, including their demand for greater power-sharing in the Province's leadership. Compared to the proposed agreement discussed in the last round of boycott talks, which failed in April due to a dispute between the PUK and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leaderships over division of top-level Provincial positions, the current proposal increases the number of high-level Provincial positions for Arabs and Turkmans. The Arab bloc responded favorably to the KBL proposal. However, just as it did at the beginning of the last round of boycott negotiations, the Turkman bloc again increased its demands over what it had achieved in the previous round. ¶9. (C) In response, the PRT continued pressure on ITF KPC members to moderate their demands; began encouraging moderate, non-political Turkmans from the broader community to pressure Turkman KPC members; and mobilized the Turkman bloc's more moderate, Shia members to distance themselves somewhat from their ITF colleagues and play a more constructive role in boycott negotiations. However, the Turkman bloc's written response to the KBL proposal gave little ground and once again increased its demands; in subsequent negotiations, the Turkman bloc (in contrast to the KBL) displayed an extremely uncompromising attitude. As a result, the KBL leadership is increasingly impatient and the KPC Chairman has begun to explore options for disciplining boycotting members, up to and including removing them. -------------- -------------- COMMENT: ITF BLOCKING POLITICAL RECONCILATION IN KIRKUK, PLAYING A DANGEROUS GAME -------------- -------------- ¶10. (C) The PRT believes that negotiations based on the current KBL proposal are the best chance in the last ten months to achieve an important sign of political reconciliation in Kirkuk. While taking account of political realities in Kirkuk (and avoiding the problems that killed the April negotiations),the KBL's proposal -- which goes beyond what the PRT had encouraged it to offer -- would bring boycotting KPC members back and, at the same time, address several functional governance problems caused by key vacancies in the Provincial Government. Though ITF members know very well why the last round of boycott negotiations failed, the ITF-driven Turkman bloc has insisted on unrealistic demands that would send this round of negotiations to the same fate. ¶11. (C) In doing this, the ITF seems to have miscalculated its position and is risking more than just the positions it stands to gain. With Provincial elections expected in a few months, the KBL considers this the last chance to solve the boycott in the current KPC. Also, throughout the boycott, the KPC Chairman has been unwilling to use the KBL's majority on the KPC to play hardball with boycotters, telling the PRT that doing so would harm relations among the communities; he has handled boycotters rather gently, permitting them to keep their offices and perks and consulting them informally on issues concerning them, such as district council appointments BAGHDAD 00002980 003 OF 003 and allocation of public-works projects. However, because the KBL extended itself so far in making its proposal (beyond what the KPC Chairman personally wanted and to the aggravation of the local KDP Center),the KPC Chairman has changed his mind about disciplining boycotters, even if doing so would risk aggravating tensions among Kirkuk's communities. CROCKER