PRT KIRKUK: ARTICLE 140 COMMITTEE MEMBER MOHAMMED

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 000538 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/13/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM IZ SUBJECT: PRT KIRKUK: ARTICLE 140 COMMITTEE MEMBER MOHAMMED KHALIL PROTESTS ARAB RELOCATION PLAN REF: BAGHDAD 431 Classified By: PRT Leader Jim Bigus for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) This is a PRT Kirkuk reporting cable ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Kirkuk Provincial Council (PC) and Article 140 Commission member, Mohammed Khalil, a Sunni Arab, says the Article 140 Commission,s approval of a proposed Arab relocation program came after a "strife-filled" debate over whether the program would be voluntary. The final wording was an ambiguous statement that Kirkuk Arabs are interpreting as indicating the program will involve involuntary relocation. Khalil is threatening to withdraw from participation on the Commission if the program is not specifically declared voluntary. Furthermore, Arab and Turkoman PC members will refuse to engage in any further negotiations about ending their boycott of the Kirkuk Provincial Council if the change is not made. Khalil said about 50,000 of the 261,000 persons subject to possible relocation are willing to go, although other sources give a much lower total for potential relocatees. Public assurances of a voluntary relocation program would only be effective if given by Commission Chairman and Minister of Justice, Hashim Al-Shibli (Sunni Arab, Iraqiyya list). The question of whether the program should be voluntary or involuntary may be symptomatic of ambiguities in the Arabic and Kurdish versions of TAL Article 58. Completing normalization by the March deadline is unlikely, even though proposing boundary changes has been removed form the Commission,s responsibilities. Mohammed Khalil defended his attendance at a recent Ankara conference promising a delay in implementing Article 140, saying his critics have a "psychological complex" about the conference. Khalil alluded to apparent assassination threats in the wake of the Ankara event. END SUMMARY. -------------- MOHAMMED KHALIL RESURFACES -------------- ¶2. (C ) PC and GOI Article 140 Commission member Mohammed Khalil met on 4 February with IPAO to discuss current developments in the Article 140 implementation process and related issues. Mohammed Khalil had dropped out of sight in the past few weeks, after reportedly making inflammatory statements at a conference in Ankara that called for postponement of Article 140 implementation. There were local reports that he had been threatened with arrest or worse by Kurdish authorities. In this latest meeting, he appeared relaxed and convivial. -------------- -------------- STRIFE IN THE ARTICLE 140 COMMISSION OVER RELOCATION -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) He opened by stating that the press and other reports about the Article 140 Commission's newly announced relocation program were incomplete, lacking the "strife" in the Committee leading up to the approval of the program. Khalil claimed he was the "only one" who disagreed with the provisions, arguing, he said, that there must be a specific provision in the program stating that it was voluntary. ¶4. (C) Khalil said that he objected to the basic idea of returning the "Wafidain" (i.e. "beneficiaries" of Saddam,s Arabization policies) to their original homes, and had hoped to get support from Article 140 Chairman, Minister of Justice (MOJ) al-Shibli, since he is an Arab, for addition of the voluntary clause. Khalil said the MOJ "seemed" to support him during Committee discussions, but the final approved version of the program did not contain his requested language. Therefore, Khalil is now demanding that the wording of the program recommendation be clarified to specifically state that it is voluntary. If this wording is not added, said Khalil, he "will withdraw from the Commission." ¶5. (C) Khalil was especially incensed at Kurdistan Minister of External Affairs/Article 140 Commission member Mohammed Ihsan, claiming that Ihsan had "talked unprofessionally and insulted the Arabs in front of the Commission." Asked about the insult, Khalil said Ihsan had called the Wafidain "dishonest." Khalil added that during the dispute over the wording of the program he was the only Commission member who insisted that the program should be made voluntary. The other members remained silent and did not get involved. -------------- INVOLUNTARY RELOCATION: NO BASIS IN LAW? -------------- ¶6. (C) Asked if any Commission member raised the question of whether the Commission had the legal power to order an involuntary return of the Wafidain, Khalil said that he made two points during the discussion. First, that TAL Article 58, which authorizes the Commission to deal with relocation issues, does not say that "Arabs" have to return to southern provinces but only refers to those who benefited from ethnic cleansing (NOTE: this seems to be an opening for claiming that Kurds who do not have roots in Kirkuk but have settled there since liberation should also return to their origin point. This idea has been raised a number of times recently by Sunni Arabs and ITF Turkomans. END NOTE). Second, he said, TAL Article 58 does not authorize the involuntary return of the Wafidain. ¶7. (C) Asked if he expected the Prime Minister to sign off on the relocation program as recommended by the Commission, Khalil said that the recommendations has been passed to the office of the PM, where there are "a number of legal advisors" who will review it. Khalil hopes that the "Council of Ministers will see these mistakes" but he would not provide an opinion on what the Prime Minister,s position would be on the Relocation Program. -------------- 261,000 REMAINING "WAFIDAIN" -------------- ¶8. (C) Khalil then described the makeup of the Wafidain community, dividing it into two groups: (1) those willing to move back to their original homes; and (2) those not willing to do so. Khalil said that "we should support and help those that want to go." Those who want to remain, he continued, "should not be penalized in any way." He said that papers that he has from the Passport and Nationality Department indicate that there about 363,000 people in Kirkuk who came to the province between 1968 and 2003 and who could be classified as Wafidain. Of these, about 102,000 people have left Kirkuk and returned to their original homes. Of the remaining 261,000, about 50,000 are willing to move back to their original homes while the rest, about 211,000 people, want to stay. ¶9. (C) NOTE: this figure for Wafidain willing to leave approximately tracks with the figures supplied to us by the National Solution Commission (reftel). Khalil,s figure for those wishing to remain, however, is much larger. The NSC said that many people had already returned home and that they estimated that there were only a few thousand families who had not registered with them to return to the Southern Iraq. NSC representatives expected that most of these would also agree to relocate once they saw money actually being dispersed. END NOTE). ¶10. (C) Khalil was asked how long it would take before relocation funds began being disbursed, "assuming that all problems (e.g. the voluntary/involuntary question) were resolved." He replied that it was unclear, and cited the difficulties that the Commission had in getting the Ministry of Finance to turn over their initial funding, USD 20 million, out of a total compensation/operations budget of USD 200 million. He expects more problems with follow-on allocations that will be needed like, for example, the relocation program. -------------- -- BORDER ADJUSTMENTS NOW UNDER PRESIDENCY COUNCIL -------------- -- ¶11. (C) Khalil does not believe that the Article 140 Normalization Process will finish by its planned mid-March completion date. He also noted that the boundary adjustment question has in essence been moved out of the purview of the Commission and will be handled entirely by the Presidency Council, even though, he said, it is still considered part of normalization. (NOTE: we have heard reports such as this about the boundary adjustment process several times over the last week. MOJ Al-Shibli confirmed the role of the Presidency Council in the boundary adjustment question, and indicated that this would be separate from normalization. Al-Shibli said that the boundary changes could happen "anytime the Council decides," even after the Referendum. This is a deviation from the original procedure as defined by several Article 140 Commission members in September and October. In those meetings the explained that the Commission would develop boundary change recommendations to be presented to the Prime Minister for his action, as is the case with other normalization requirements, and that this would conclude by March 2007. END NOTE). -------------- -------------- JUSTICE MINISTER SHOULD PROVIDE PUBLIC REASSURANCES -------------- -------------- ¶12. (C) IPAO noted that in the past week, PC Chairman Rizgar Ali has privately and publicly stated that no one will be forced to move involuntarily under the terms of the relocation program. Asked if he thought it would be useful for Rizgar or the Governor to on go television to explain the relocation program and allay concerns about it being involuntary, Khalil declined, saying "any comment Rizgar made would only be 'anesthesia' to placate local residents." Instead, he recommended that Article 140 Commission Chairman MOJ al-Shibli appear on television and make such a statement. That, he said, would carry some force of law and would commit the Commission to following a voluntary approach. -------------- NO MOVEMENT ON PC BOYCOTT -------------- ¶13. (C) Asked about the current situation with the Arab/Turkoman boycott of the Kirkuk PC, Khalil said that there had been practically no movement on either the Kurdish or Turkoman/Arab side. Although PC Chairman Rizgar Ali had recently sent a memo asking the Turkomans and Arabs to end the boycott and also made a televised appeal, he followed this, said Khalil, with a public statement blaming the boycott on "personal issues," referring specifically to Iraqi Turkomen Front leader Ali Mahdi's anger over the incident in which he was allegedly "roughed up" while trying to protest the visit of the Article 140 Commission to Kirkuk in October ¶2006. According to Khalil, the Arabs and Turkoman had taken this statement as demeaning, and had therefore disregarded Rizgar's latest overtures (NOTE: When the boycott first started, the Turkomans themselves offered the Ali Mahdi incident as a cause of the boycott and demanded an apology and investigation. Later they substituted more policy-focused demands, such as ethnic parity in government employment as a precondition to their return to the PC. END NOTE). -------------- RELOCATION PROGRAM MUST BE VOLUNTARY OR... -------------- ¶14. (C) Khalil stated emphatically that if the "voluntary" wording were not added to the Commission's relocation proposals he would withdraw from further activity with the Commission, adding that there would also not be any negotiations over the boycott until the voluntary nature of the relocation was officially recognized. The Arabs and Turkomans, he said, were in agreement about this. -------------- -------------- ANKARA CONFERENCE: OPPONENTS HAVE PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPLEX -------------- -------------- ¶15. (C) IPAO then asked about Mohammed Khalil's presence at the Ankara conference and about his statements which seem to have off such a firestorm in Kirkuk. Khalil claimed that "certain groups" in Kirkuk seem to have a "psychological complex" about the Ankara conference, and had overreacted. He described the Ankara gathering as just a meeting of "civil society groups." He complained that a few days earlier KRG Minister Kemal Kirkukli had attended a conference in London during which he said, according to Khalil, that the "Arabs must move" from Kirkuk, yet, "no one was angry at him." He evaded further questions about what exactly he had said at the conference, claiming that it was just "his presence" there that had set off the storm of criticism in Kirkuk and the KRG. -------------- ASSASSINATION THREATS -------------- ¶16. (C) Khalil concluded the meeting by noting that he would not be intimidated and would continue working for Kirkuk unless "we are assassinated," alluding to threats that had been made against him. ¶17. (C) COMMENT: Khalil's local standing has been brought into question since his appearance and statements at the Ankara conference, but he showed no uncertainty with us during this meeting. His linking of the "voluntary" relocation issue and the Arab/Turkoman PC boycott further complicates the boycott question. Like the Arabic and Kurdish versions of TAL Article 58, the Commission,s finalized proposal uses ambiguous language that could be taken to mean either that the program is voluntary or involuntary. Clarification as to how this process should be understood is needed. Another Article 140 Commission member, Assyrian lawyer Ashur Benjamin told us the same day that from the "legal standpoint," he believes the law provides for mandatory relocation of Wafidain, but because of political considerations, it will be considered a voluntary program and mandatory relocation will not be enforced. END COMMENT. SPECKHARD