PRT KIRKUK: OPPOSITION TO JOINING THE KRG AMONG

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BAGHDAD 003255 SIPDIS NEA/I PLEASE PASS TO USAID SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/I - KHOURY-KINCANNON, INR/NESA - HAY AND WORLEY, AND INR/B E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/28/2017 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR IZ SUBJECT: PRT KIRKUK: OPPOSITION TO JOINING THE KRG AMONG KIRKUK'S KURDS REF: A. BAGHDAD 1304 ¶B. BAGHDAD 2781 Classified By: Classified by PRT Kirkuk Team Leader Howard Keegan for r easons 1.4 (b) and (d). This is a Kirkuk Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) message. ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. Many independent and moderate Kurds in Kirkuk city, frustrated with what they see as poor governance and rampant corruption in Kirkuk since 2003 by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP),have come to oppose Kirkuk,s accession to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) under Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution and now support the idea of &Special Status8 for Kirkuk, under which it would become an independent region. Though the Kurdish parties oppose Special Status and insist that Kirkuk,s Kurds will support accession to the KRG, influential Kurds in Kirkuk support Special Status, and the PUK has acted to limit the influence of this &new direction8 within its own Reform faction. The extent and influence of the &new direction8 remain unknown, though a Special Status option likely would be popular in the Article 140 referendum. END SUMMARY. -------------- A &NEW DIRECTION8 TOWARDS &SPECIAL STATUS?8 -------------- ¶2. (U) According to Transitional Administrative Law Section (TAL) 58 and Iraq Constitution Article 140, the GoI must conduct a referendum in Kirkuk and other &disputed territories8 in order to determine their &permanent resolution.8 Given the provenance of TAL 58 and Article 140, many assume that this means Kirkuk,s voters will have a simple choice: retaining Kirkuk,s current status as an Iraqi Province or joining the KRG (note: Kirkuk is also known as at-Tameem province). However, neither TAL 58 nor Article 140 specifies the referendum question, and many in Kirkuk favor an alternative option, Special Status (also known locally as &Private Status,8 &Independent Status,8 or &Plan B8) under which Kirkuk would become an independent region with internal autonomy similar to that enjoyed by the KRG. ¶3. (SBU) According to PUK and KDP representatives, Kirkuk city,s Kurds prefer and will vote for accession to the KRG. For some time, however, a variety of other contacts have told the PRT that a majority of Kurds in Kirkuk city )- especially those among &the original people of Kirkuk,8 as they call themselves -- have turned against accession to the KRG because they believe that the PUK and KDP have botched the opportunity they have had since 2003 to show that they could govern Kirkuk well. According to these sources, up to 80 percent of Kurds in Kirkuk city would vote for Special Status, though this widespread &new direction8 is largely invisible because it lacks a leader or powerful champion. Recently, more prominent Kurds have spoken with the PRT about their support for Special Status. -------------- PROMINENT KURDS SYMPATHETIC TO SPECIAL STATUS -------------- ¶4. (C) One day after a July 16 multiple-VBIED attack in a Kirkuk city market area that killed more than 80 and wounded more than 180, Mayor Ihsan Majid Gilly (KDP),resigned, complaining of &chaos8 in the city and the impossibility of protecting it. He later withdrew his resignation, but not before telling the PRT that the original people of Kirkuk, including many Kurds, blame the PUK and KDP for mismanagement and inter-communal tension in Kirkuk since 2003. Complaining that the PUK and KDP have divided up the KRG, running it for their own ends, Ihsan said that these original people do not want the same fate and would vote against joining the KRG. Referring to the April failure of a proposed power-sharing agreement to end the ten-month-long boycott of the Kirkuk Provincial Council by most of its Arab and Turkman members (ref A),he lamented the short-sightedness of the Kurdish parties, saying that Kurds had sacrificed &200,000 martyrs8 fighting Saddam over Kirkuk, but would lose it over &two positions.8 Ihsan said that he wanted to form a new, multi-ethnic movement of native Kirkukis to organize the &new direction8 and solicited PRT support for his efforts. BAGHDAD 00003255 002 OF 004 ¶5. (C) Though not an &original person of Kirkuk,8 former Director of Kirkuk Television and influential newspaper columnist Arif Qorbani (PUK Reform faction) echoed Ihsan,s sentiments, telling the PRT that widespread popular discontent with PUK and KDP mismanagement of Kirkuk since 2003 had eroded support among Kirkuk city,s Kurds for joining the KRG. Arif shared their &shame for the administration of the last four years8 and thought that Kurds were &as guilty as Chemical Ali8 for not including more Arabs and Turkmans in Kirkuk,s political leadership. He said that most of Kirkuk city,s Kurds, having concluded that the Kurdish parties could not govern the Province, had settled on Special Status. Arif added that, because Kirkuk,s accession to the KRG could not be accomplished peacefully unless the Kurdish parties granted leadership positions in Kirkuk and the KRG to the Arab and Turkman communities, he had proposed the Special Status alternative to KDP President Masood Barzani. Arif did not share Barzani,s reply, if any. ¶6. (C) Also calling himself an original person of Kirkuk, Sirwan Daoudi (indepenedent ex-PUK, with ties to the PUK Reform faction),Kirkuk correspondent for the USG-funded Al-Hurra satellite news channel, echoed Ihsan and Arif,s complaints of Kurdish party mismanagement. He told the PRT that most independent Kurds (as well as many moderate members of the PUK and KDP) in Kirkuk city oppose Kirkuk,s accession to the KRG because they fear that the KRG would send in &directors from outside8 )- that is, party-appointed non-natives to run Kirkuk based on instructions from the Kurdish parties and for the benefit of the Kurdish parties. To prevent this from happening and preserve Kirkuk,s autonomy, he said, moderate and independent Kurds were exploring &new directions,8 including Special Status, which he called a &Kirkuk solution for Kirkuk, not an Iraqi solution or a Kurdistan solution.8 ¶7. (C) Director of the Hawal Foundation (publisher of the popular Kurdish newspaper Hawal and Arabic newspaper Neba) Shwan Daoudi (independent, with ties to the PUK Reform faction) has long advocated a Special Status option for Kirkuk. While Kurds &outside of Kirkuk8 support its accession to the KRG, he said, Kirkuk city,s Kurds had become frustrated with PUK and KDP mismanagement and, consequently, had come to support Special Status. He complained that none of the leadership of either major Kurdish party was from Kirkuk Province, with the exception of PUK Poliburo member Jalal Jawher, who is reviled in Kirkuk for the corruption under his 2003-2006 tenure as PUK Kirkuk Center Chief (septel). ¶8. (C) Though personally opposed to Special Status, newspaper editorialist and former GoI Minster of Transportation Dr. Abdulsattar Muhammad (independent ex-PUK) admitted the force of the &new direction,8 saying that it was increasingly popular among Kurds in Kirkuk city. He personally preferred that Kirkuk join the KRG, but said that Special Status would be &okay8 because Kurds would still be the majority in the Province (especially after its boundaries were restored to their pre-Ba,athist condition) and would continue to administer it. -------------- THE &NEW DIRECTION8: WHO ARE THEY? -------------- ¶9. (C) The sources above described the supporters of Special Status as Kurdish &independents8 or &party moderates8 in Kirkuk city making common cause with its Turkman community. To the extent that the &new direction8 has support within the Kurdish parties, it lies within the Reform faction of the PUK. Other PUK members and the sources above named now-suspended PUK Kirkuk Center Deputy Chief Tahseen Nawuk (Reform faction) as a Special Status supporter, while some also included leader of the PUK,s Reform faction and former PUK Deputy Secretary General Nawshirwan Mustafa. Several of the sources above thought that the quiet influence of &new direction8 on the PUK leadership had increased the PUK,s flexibility on Article 140 implementation. ¶10. (C) Though the sources above were unwilling to name KDP names, they said that the &new direction8 includes KDP BAGHDAD 00003255 003 OF 004 members who are working slowly to change the KDP,s relatively hard-line position on Article 140. However, the PRT has been unable to identify any support for Special Status in the KDP other than Mayor Ihsan, who is estranged from the local KDP leadership, which he called &outsiders8 with &small minds8 who run the local KDP organization &like an intelligence apparatus8 (ref B). -------------- KURDISH PARTY RESPONSES: NOTHING TO SEE HERE -------------- ¶11. (C) Support for Special Status among PUK Reform faction members has, in fact, become a source of tension between the PUK and KDP. The KDP Kirkuk Center Chief declared Special Status to be &against Kurdish national aims8 and, according to Shwan Daoudi, asked the PUK to discipline Daoudi due to his public advocacy of Special Status. Following a June 26 civil society conference in which &new direction8 members were prominent participants, KDP President Masood Barzani reportedly contacted PUK Secretary-General Jalal Talabani and, noting that many of the participants were &from Jalal,s ideology,8 (i.e., PUK) asked Jalal to silence them. ¶12. (C) Though current and former local PUK leaders acknowledge widespread concern about corruption, to the PRT they dismissed the &new direction8 as a &temporary feeling,8 born of concern about possible Turkish intervention in Kirkuk, which would pass. However, recent PUK moves suggest that the PUK regards the &new direction8 as something more than that (septel). Following the recent &Strategic Agreement8 between the PUK and KDP, the PUK disciplined several prominent and troublesome members of its Reform faction, particularly those who favor Special Status. The PUK suspended Tahseen Nawuk from his party duties for three months, removed Arif Qorbani from his position, and pressured independents, including Shwan Daoudi. Both Arif and Shwan thought that the PUK,s motivation for these moves was its desire to please the KDP under the Strategic Agreement. The PUK Kirkuk Relationship Bureau Chief told the PRT that one of the Strategic Agreement,s provisions was &unified political speech,8 though he denied any link between the Strategic Agreement and the removals. -------------- -------------- COMMENT: EXTENT AND INFLUENCE OF &NEW DIRECTION8 UNKNOWN, BUT SOMETHING THERE -------------- -------------- ¶13. (C) The extent and influence of this &new direction8 among Kirkuk city Kurds is difficult to gauge and impossible to quantify. Supporters or sympathizers within Kurdish parties are understandably leery of discussing it, especially after the recent PUK housecleaning, and Special Status supporters have their own interest in magnifying the size and influence of the &new direction.8 However, the underlying motivation for the &new direction8 -) rampant corruption and mismanagement since 2003 and the resulting widespread anger at the PUK and KDP )- is widely recognized. PUK and KDP leaders acknowledge the corruption problem and public concerns about it, even if they have not made serious moves to deal with it. ¶14. (C) Indirect signals from the parties also give a clue to the influence of the &new direction.8 As their aim is Kirkuk,s accession to the KRG, the Kurdish parties oppose a Special Status option. However, the KDP,s outright opposition toward it and the PUK,s ready dismissal of it suggests that they worry about its popularity. Also, the PUK,s recent housecleaning targeting Special Status supporters removed potential leaders for the &new direction8 and indicates, among other things, that the PUK sees them as a threat, both internally and to its relationship with the KDP, which historically has taken a harder line on Article 140 than the PUK. ¶15. (C) The &new direction8 seems so far limited to Kirkuk city, which has 80 percent of the Province,s population, and it mixes easily with the snobbery of &the original people of Kirkuk.8 Native Kirkukis of all communities, having lived together for decades, see themselves as cosmopolitan and tolerant. They resent having this order upset by forces from BAGHDAD 00003255 004 OF 004 outside Kirkuk, especially as native Kirkukis are not well-represented in the leaderships of the PUK and KDP. They particularly dislike the KDP (and its ruling Barzani family) for what they see as its tribal structure and ideological rigidity. ¶16. (C) A Special Status option, if available in the Article 140 referendum, probably would be very popular in Kirkuk. All Kirkukis, regardless of community, complain about centralization in Baghdad, and the opportunity for increased internal autonomy would have wide appeal. Special Status already has broad support in Kirkuk,s Turkman community and is a common talking point for its leadership. Though Kirkuk,s Arab tribal leadership generally objects on principle to Article 140, many Arab moderates in Kirkuk city favor Special Status as well. These communities support Special Status for many of the same reasons as the &new direction,8 but also because they see accession to the KRG as synonymous with their permanent marginalization. (In fact, Kurds likely would continue to dominate Kirkuk,s politics in a Special Status Kirkuk, as Abdulsattar Mohammed noted; however, Special Status would give Kirkuk,s communities space to work out local power-sharing arrangements to mitigate this.) -------------- BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES -------------- ¶17. (SBU) ARIF QORBANI: Arif is originally from Chamchamal, a district east of Kirkuk city that was part of Kirkuk Province until 1976, when the previous regime annexed it to Sulaymaniah Province as part of its program to reduce the number of Kurds in Kirkuk. He was a member of the PUK,s Strategic faction, answering to PUK Politburo member and then-PUK Kirkuk Center Chief Jalal Jawher. Their relationship became strained in 2005, when Jalal Jawher was preparing to set up the PUK-funded Kirkuk Television. Arif took advantage of a meeting with PUK Secretary General Jalal Talabani to make his own pitch to run the station, and Jalal Talabani appointed Arif to run it rather than Jalal Jawher,s favored candidate. Still, Arif considered himself a supporter of Jalal Jawher and the Strategic faction until the run-up to the 2006 PUK Kirkuk Center leadership elections, when he broke and associated himself with the Reform faction candidate. (The PUK,s Reform faction won due to widespread member dissatisfaction about corruption and mismanagement, which it blamed on Jalal Jawher,s administration.) As Director of Kirkuk Television, Arif developed a reputation as an anti-corruption crusader by targeting corrupt public officials, including those in the PUK Strategic faction, who have long sought to discipline him. ¶18. (SBU) ABDULSATTAR MOHAMMED: Originally from a village in Altun Kopri, a mixed Kurdish-Turkman area northwest of Kirkuk city, Abdulsattar holds a Ph.D. in Psychology. He served as Iraqi Minister of Transportation in the mid-1970s under President Ahmed Hassan Bakr. He said that he left Iraq in 1999 for New Zealand, where about half of his family lives (he is also a citizen of New Zealand),returning in 2003. He is a lecturer at the Kirkuk University College of education and also writes newspaper columns. Abdulsattar said that he &used to be8 a PUK member, though is now an independent. He boasted that he is &close to Kurdish parties and politicians8 and remains a &friend of8 PUK Secretary-General and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. SIPDIS CROCKER