KRG BOUNDARIES STILL CONTENTIOUS ON EVE OF UNAMI'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 001514

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/13/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS PINR IZ
SUBJECT: KRG BOUNDARIES STILL CONTENTIOUS ON EVE OF UNAMI'S
FIRST RECOMMENDATIONS

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Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Greg D'Elia for reasons 1.4 (
b,d).


1. (C) Special Advisor for Northern Iraq Tom Krajeski in
early May visited Kirkuk, Mosul, and Erbil to discuss the
status of Kirkuk and other disputed internal boundaries in
the run-up to the first United Nations Mission in Iraq
(UNAMI) recommendations on resolving KRG boundaries.
Ambassador Krajeski met with Kurdish, Arab, Turkman, and
Christian leaders in Kirkuk city, Christian and Shabak
minority leaders in the disputed Hamdaniya district of Ninewa
province, and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials
in Erbil. Positions on all sides remain hardest over Kirkuk;
the Kurds offer compromises on timing and the makeup of local
government but demand the city join the KRG, while the Arabs
and Turkmans lobby for &special status8 outside KRG
control. The minorities in Hamdaniya - one of the four
territories UNAMI designated for early resolution - are
similarly divided, with some Shia Shabak opposing KRG
membership due to local Kurdish excesses, and some Christians
hoping for KRG blessing to form an autonomous region of their
own. End summary.

Kurds: No Compromise On Annexing Kirkuk City
--------------


2. (C) Kirkuk remains the greatest challenge. At the
national level, Kurdish leaders are offering what they
consider compromises to ensure Kirkuk city,s entry into the
KRG, including accepting the principle of shared
administration among the city,s ethnic groups and the idea
of splitting the province so that some districts remain
outside KRG boundaries. Neither offer is new, and some
hardline KRG leaders continue to reject even these, but they
represent at least a stated willingness among KRG
policymakers to embrace pragmatism to soften opposition to
KRG annexation.


3. (C) A newer, and perhaps a more significant,
compromise is a greater willingness to wait. In February,
KRG President Massoud Barzani vehemently maintained that
Kirkuk must be resolved by July 1, the end of the six-month
extension that UNAMI leader Staffan de Mistura negotiated
last December. Only a few months later, Kurdish leaders at
all levels acknowledge - in both public and private - the
difficulty and inevitable sluggishness of resolving such
contentious issues. They now demand only demonstrable signs
of forward motion during the six-month extension, so that
they can show their population the process is yielding
results.


4. (C) Local Kurdish leaders show little of the same
flexibility. Rizgar Ali, Kirkuk Provincial Council Chairman
and probably the province,s most influential leader due to
his high-level connections in the PUK, noted that the Kurds
have little reason to compromise with Arabs or Turkmans )
Kurds dominate the executive posts, provincial council,
ministries, and security forces, and time is on their side.
This stranglehold on municipal and provincial power does
little to secure Kirkuk,s annexation into the KRG, but much
to render the area a Kurdish fiefdom in the meantime.
Indeed, Rizgar Ali is not the only local Kurdish leader whose
hardline actions probably exceed KRG policy and alienate
non-Kurdish communities in disputed territories.

Arabs and Turkmans Cling To &Special Status8
--------------


5. (C) Arab and Turkman interlocutors, however, continue
to insist on a &special status8 for Kirkuk outside the KRG.
Few have defined exactly what this means, but most highlight
the recent agreement betweent the Kurdish and Arab blocs on
dividing Kirkuk's government posts ) 32% each for Kurds,
Arabs, and Turkman, and 4% for Christians ) and a degree of
provincial autonomy exceeding that of a normal Iraqi province
but short of that of a formal region (since the local Kurdish
majority probably would block a constitutional effort to
incorporate Kirkuk as its own region). Muhammad Khalil,
Deputy Chair of the Kirkuk province Article 140 Committee and
a Sunni Arab, emphasized the need to decentralize authority
from Baghdad, but offered few specifics. The KRG,
predictably, continues to reject the &special status8
proposal ) Masrur Barzani, KRG intelligence chief and son of
the KRG President, declared special status outside the KRG a
reasonable idea in theory but one that contradicts the will
of the Kurdish majority.


6. (C) Another common Arab and Turkomen refrain is that
the U.S. is responsible for resolving the issue, implicitly
by imposing a final status outside the KRG. Kirkuk Deputy
Governor Rakan al-Juburi (a Sunni Arab) said the U.S. has
misplayed the Kirkuk situation since 2003, such that the

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population believes Washington supports only the Kurds.
Another Sunni leader, Abu Saddam, acknowledged the problems
with the U.S. imposing such solutions, but still called on
Washington to expel recent Kurdish settlers or find a way to
resolve Kirkuk without their participation. The Arabs and
Turkomen probably realize that calling on the U.S. to dictate
terms is unrealistic, but the demand reflects their ongoing
distrust of the UN, fear of losing a referendum, and
recognition they are fighting an uphill battle to remain
outside the KRG.


7. (C) Opposition to joining the KRG is strongest in
Hawija, the Sunni Arab-dominated district in western Kirkuk
province. Abu Saddam, probably the district,s most powerful
tribal leader, said Hawija is a historical and inseparable
part of Kirkuk province, the province could not join the KRG,
and his many tribesmen would take to the streets if either
happened. The KRG for its part disavowed any claim to Hawija
years ago and we have doubts that
Hawijans feel such allegiance to their province, per se, but
both Abu Saddam,s threat to mobilize and the broader
risk of violence out of Hawija remain very real.

Iraqi Turkman Front Fragmenting, Alienating Kurds
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8. (C) The Turkmans are struggling with a leadership
crisis, and their voice in Kirkuk appears to be weakening.
The Iraqi Turkman Front (ITF) is both the strongest and most
hardline Turkman party, by many accounts entirely on the
strength of generous funding from Ankara. It controls nine
seats on the Kirkuk Provincial Council, which it has withheld
in an 18-month-long boycott. One of these nine returned last
week to the PC, and five others planned to do so until the
intervention by Ali Mahdi, the ITF's predominant figure; it
may, however, be too late to do much good. The ITF has so
alienated the Kurdish leadership that even moderate KRG
leaders in Erbil have little appetite to work with them, and
write the Front off as a mouthpiece for Ankara in any event.
Time, however, is not on the Turkman side; their numbers in
Kirkuk are far less than they claim, by some estimates less
than 20 percent, and the community lacks any apparent
military capacity.


9. (C) Kurdish officials in both Kirkuk and Erbil decry
the ITF,s relationship with Ankara, although the ITF,s
obstinacy probably is a greater irritant. Kurdish officials
seem to perceive the Ankara-ITF relationship is weakening )
Kirkuk Governor Abdul-Rahman Mustafa said Turkish influence
is becoming less obvious in his province,
Masrur Barzani said control of the ITF portfolio auspiciously
is shifting from Turkish military to civilian intelligence,
and Nechirvan Barzani assessed that Turkey ultimately will
not intervene seriously in Kirkuk. All three, however,
dismissed the ITF as Ankara's puppet, which neither enjoys
popular Turkman support nor merits
engagement as a legitimate Kirkuki political force. The
Kurds to some extent are framing their parochial interest in
Kirkuk as a matter of Iraqi sovereignty, but Ankara can
indeed help the situation by remaining as far as possible
from a political party ) the ITF - which does its
constituency more harm than good.

Referendum Equated With KRG Accession
--------------


10. (C) All communities treat the idea of a referendum as a
de facto agreement to join the KRG. Kurds often call for
&quick implementation of Article 1408 or &resolving Kirkuk
according to the constitution," both essentially euphemisms
for scheduling a referendum they know the KRG will win. This
implicit confidence in the outcome of a referendum stems by
turns from the Kurds' demographic edge, superior
organization, and potential ability to stack a close vote.
PC Chairman Rizgar Ali, a PUK insider and hardline supporter
of KRG accession, counters concerns a plebiscite would
destabilize the province by noting that the three nationwide
votes since 2003 caused only minimal violence in Kirkuk.


11. (C) The Arabs and Turkman, for their part, call a
referendum unworkable because of the large number of Kurds
) Abu Saddam and others claimed between 600,000 and 700,000,
many with no previous roots in Kirkuk ) they claim have
arrived in Kirkuk since 2003. (Indeed, UN officials in Erbil
noted a disturbing spike in the voter rolls in
Kirkuk.) Some Arabs and Turkman say a vote can happen if
these people leave or in some way cede voting rights, but
ultimately treat the idea of a referendum with extreme
suspicion because of the overwhelming resources they
anticipate the KRG would put into winning. The exception are
Kirkuki Christians ) a delegation of them expressed
casual support for a referendum as a just and democratic

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solution, but otherwise supported any peaceful outcome.

Shia Shabak Renounce KRG Over Local Kurd Excesses
-------------- --------------


12. (C) The Hamdaniya district of Ninewa province, one of
the first four territories UNAMI has slated for resolution,
is a prime example of an area initially attracted to the KRG
for its superior services and security, but now partially
alienated due to perceived abuses by local Kurdish leaders
and Peshmerga security forces. Nechirvan Barzani
acknowledged that Kurdish leaders here and elsewhere may be
alienating non-Kurds in many of the disputed territories.
Some leaders of the Shabak, concentrated in Hamdaniya
alongside Christians complain of discrimination and
strong-arm tactics by district and provincial Kurdish
leaders, including diverting water and resettling Kurds on
others' traditional lands. The Shabak leaders with whom we
met, who are members of the Ninewa Provincial Council
affiliated with the the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq
(ISCI) and among the only Shabak with significant political
clout, now fervently oppose KRG accession. In contrast to
opponents of KRG accession in Kirkuk, these Shabak leaders do
not oppose a referendum, probably in the confidence that
Hamdaniya voters would choose Ninewa province over the KRG.

Christians Seek Autonomous Region Of Their Own
-------------- -


13. (C) Christians in Hamdaniya are comparatively agnostic on
whether to join the KRG ) at least some of them advocate an
autonomous Christian region on the border of the KRG and
Ninewa, whether under the GOI or KRG umbrella. Leaders of a
Christian umbrella organization called the
Chaldo-Assyrian-Syriac Front and KRG Finance Minister
Sarkis Aghajan ) probably the most influential Christian
leader in Northern Iraq ) laid out essentially the same
scheme. The region nominally could answer either to the KRG
or GOI, but would have its own Prime Minister, cabinet,
legislature, and five percent allotment of the Iraqi budget
(proportionate to what the Christians claim is their share of
the Iraqi population). Its territory as Aghajan described it
would consist of a thin ribbon of villages along the
Ninewa-KRG border, turning eastward into Dohuk province at
the Turkish border. Citizens in this scheme would vote for
representatives at all levels - national, local, and regional
if they join the KRG.


14. (C) The Christians are highly unlikely to get either as
much territory as they want ) it currently includes Habur
Gate, the only major border crossing from Turkey into Iraq
and a huge cash cow for the KRG ) or five percent of the
Iraq budget, since Christians probably make up less than five
percent of the Iraqi population. Nonetheless, KRG Prime
Minister Nechirvan Barzani, a longtime friend of Aghajan,
said the KRG could accept some of these demands, for example
allowing Christians their own legislature and security forces
under the KRG umbrella. Whether or not Christians remain
under GOI authority in Ninawa or are incorporated into the
KRG, the main concern is maintaining and improving their
tenuous security situation in Hamdaniya. Any plan to
transition Hamdaniya from current peshmerga security to GOI
and local forces would require careful management to minimize
threats to Christian and other minorities.
CROCKER