IRAQI TURKOMAN ALLEGE KURDISH MISRULE AND US BIAS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 003311

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/13/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINS PINR IZ
SUBJECT: IRAQI TURKOMAN ALLEGE KURDISH MISRULE AND US BIAS

Classified By: PolMinCouns Robert S. Ford for reasons 1.4 (b,d).


1. (C) Summary: Iraqi Turkoman both in and out of government
in late September broadly agreed that Kurdish oppression is
their community's largest problem and that the U.S.
sytematically discriminates against Turkoman and in favor of
Kurds. Contacts generally criticized the Iraqi Turkoman
Front (ITF),the dominant Turkoman political organization,
but always with the caveat that Kurdish misrule is a far
greater concern than ITF incompetence. Most Turkoman we met
also supported Kirkuk becoming an autonomous region with a
power-sharing agreement among its ethnic communities. In Tal
Afar, the Turkoman-dominated city west of Mosul, the most
immediate difference from Kirkuk was a more visible sectarian
split - Sunni and Shia tribal leaders differed on the role of
the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG),GOI, and ITF,
whereas Shia and Sunni Turkoman in Kirkuk offer almost
identical political platforms. End summary.


2. (C) PolOffs from September 20-24 visited Kirkuk, Mosul,
and Tal Afar to research Iraqi Turkoman politics. Turkoman
interlocutors included Kirkuk Provincial Council (PC) members
Hassan Turan, Zhala Nafidchi, Tahseen Kahiyya, and Najat
Hassan; Kirkuki medical doctors Tonjai Nimaat, Fuad Zedan,
Muhammad Fatih, and Saikhin Abd al-Khadir; women's activists
Sewinj Hussein and Nahida Muhammad; Iraqi Police (IP)
officers General Turhan Abd al-Rahman (Deputy Police Chief
for Kirkuk province),General Burhan Tayib Taha (Police Chief
for Kirkuk city),and Colonel Taha Salah al-Din; Sunni imams
Hassan Abbas, Maroof Abd al-Khalik, and Sameer Fattah; Tal
Afar Shia shaykhs Abdallah Wahab, Muhsin Hussein, and Abd
al-Mehdi Ali Khan; and Tal Afar Sunni shaykhs Yunus Abbas,
Abd al-Rahman Khidir, and Ali Muhammad Said, in addition to
Hussein Avni Botsali, the Consul General at the Turkish
Consulate in Mosul.

Turkoman Grievance #1: Kurdish Misrule
--------------


3. (C) Perceived Kurdish oppression was without question the
leading Kirkuki Turkoman complaint. Each interlocutor had a
different version of it, but together they offered a picture
of chauvinist Kurdish domination of every facet of provincial
life. Turkoman PC members complained that Kurdish officials
allow them no political clout and rig the ration card system
to inflate the Kurdish demographic. Turkoman police
protested that the Kurdish parties appoint unqualified,
non-Kirkuki Kurds to senior security posts and unashamedly
monitor Kirkuki police communications with the Interior
Ministry in Baghdad. Turkoman doctors said practicing
medicine in Kirkuk can be nearly impossible for non-Kurds,
and that average Turkoman routinely gets turned away from
government hospitals. Turkoman women's activists lamented
the Kurdish parties' widespread and visible corruption.
(Comment: While taking the pulse of the Turkoman population
is difficult, the unanimity we observed among governmental
and non-governmental interlocutors is telling. End Comment.)


4. (C) Three top Turkoman police officers, led by Deputy
Provincial Chief of Police General Turhan, elaborated on
political meddling in the Kirkuk security forces. Turhan
said all Kirkuki political parties interfere; the PUK and KDP
are merely the most blatant about it. Party officials
regularly ask Turhan about his reports to the Interior
Ministry in Baghdad, suggesting that Kurdish officers are
bootlegging copies to their political parties, and both KDP
and PUK al-Sayesh (Kurdish intelligence) representatives
attend the weekly meeting of all security organizations
operating in Kirkuk. Among the largest problems in Turhan's
view are under qualified Kurdish officers - many lack
backgrounds in police work or native knowledge of the area,
placing a disproportionate burden on Arab and Turkoman
officers native to Kirkuk. As an example, he said the Kirkuk
Chief of Police - a Kurd from Erbil - recently asked Turhan
the location of Kirkuk's most prominent public square,
something "any Kirkuki would know."


5. (C) Our Turkoman partners made few exceptions for "good"
Kurdish leaders (Comment: We detected a slight preference
for the PUK over the KDP. End Comment). Both the Turkoman
police and women's activists argued that the top PUK leaders
are good men, specifically President Jalal Talabani and
Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, but that PUK apparatchiks
in Kirkuk fraudulently assure them that Arabs and Turkoman
happily accept Kurdish suzerainty. (Note: Deputy Police
Chief Turhan knows Talabani and Salih from years working in
Sulimaniya, and the lead women's activist serves as an
informal advisor to Talabani on Turkoman affairs.) The
doctors, on the other hand, argued there are no moderate
Kurdish leaders - some take comparatively helpful positions
on discrete issues but invariably return to their old ways,
and all take orders from their KRG masters.


BAGHDAD 00003311 002 OF 003


Turkoman: USG Victimizes Us and Favors Kurds
--------------


6. (C) Turkoman almost unanimously argued that the USG
discriminates against them due to a strategic alliance
between Washington and the Kurds. We heard a recurring
explanation for this alleged bias - that it is a punishment
for Turkey's refusal to host U.S. troops for the 2003
invasion, and that a U.S. soldier told Kirkuki Turkoman as
much in the early days of the war. When PolOffs told a group
of Turkoman medical doctors that this is a preposterous view
of USG strategy, they revealed genuine astonishment that we
had not heard this accusation before, such a truism it is
within their circles. The otherwise sophisticated, urbane
Turkish Consul General in Mosul similarly resisted arguments
against this explanation for perceived USG bias. PC member
Hassan Turan, an often obstinate interlocutor, further
protested that the USG has never welcomed a high-level
Turkoman delegation in Washington but currently is hosting a
much smaller Iraqi minority leader (Shabak MP Hanin Qaddo),
suggesting a plot to keep the Turkoman down.


7. (C) The Turkoman PC members were particularly interested
in the SOFA, which they claimed to view with considerable
suspicion. Turan made rather ambitious initial demands - any
strategic agreement with the US must specifically reference
the Turkoman and resolve the Kirkuk and hydrocarbon issues -
although he backed down when pressed. The PC members
nonetheless suggested the SOFA is a tool to exploit Iraq's
oil, and queried PolOffs on the suspicious timing of Shell
signing Iraq's first significant technical service contract.
PolOffs assured the PC members that the SOFA in no way
dictates Iraqi oil policy, although Turan replied with a
cocksure twinkle in his eye, "I don't believe you."

Iraqi Turkoman Front (ITF) Unimpressive, But Kurds Deemed
Worse
-------------- -------------- --------------
--------------


8. (C) Few contacts offered much enthusiasm for the ITF,
although none considered it anywhere near as big a problem as
Kurdish oppression. The Turkish consul general, a key ITF
point of contact for its essential benefactor, bluntly called
the ITF a mediocre party at best, a product of the 1990s when
the Kurds developed politically but most Turkoman remained
under Saddam's control. The Turkoman doctors and a group of
Turkoman Sunni clerics acknowledged the ITF's failure to make
real gains for their constituents, but said the blame is not
theirs because the Kurds refuse to share power. Others were
more disparaging. A pair of Turkoman women activists said
the ITF is neither representative of nor beneficial to the
Turkoman population, for example, but stressed that the far
greater problem for their community is Kurdish tyranny and
mismanagement.

Turkoman Favor Kirkuk Autonomous Region
--------------


9. (C) The Turkoman displayed remarkable consistency on
Kirkuk's final status: they want the province in its current
boundaries to be an autonomous region, with an arrangement
for power-sharing among the three main ethnic groups. The PC
members said a major gathering of both ITF and non-ITF
Turkoman notables earlier this year established the
autonomous region as the official Turkoman preference. The
three Turkoman Sunni clerics likewise told us "if you want to
make history in Kirkuk, make it an autonomous region,"
incidentally revealing a belief we heard often that Kirkuk's
final status is for the USG to dictate. None of the
Turkoman, including the PC members, specifically demanded a
32 percent distribution of PC seats or administrative
positions. This implies perhaps a bit of flexibility on the
long-term numbers albeit none at all on the necessity of a
quota.

Tal Afar Turkoman: Greater Sunni-Shia Divide
--------------


10. (C) In meetings with Turkoman tribal shaykhs from Tal
Afar, the only Iraqi city with an overwhelmingly Turkoman
population, the most obvious difference from Kirkuk was a
greater sectarian divide. Sunni and Shia Turkoman in Kirkuk
are almost (though not entirely) indistinguishable on
political questions, while the Sunni-Shia divide in Tal Afar
was clear, for example, in perceptions of the central
government. A group of Shia sheikhs protested only the GOI's
general sloth in delivering services, while the Sunni group
alleged a pattern of sectarian arrests and killings by
Shia-dominated ISF. The Shia Turkoman claimed only minor
disagreements with the Kurds such as unnecessary Peshmerga
checkpoints (perhaps indicative of a more formal relationship
with Kurdish leaders),while the Sunnis claimed more

BAGHDAD 00003311 003 OF 003


pernicious abuses by Kurdish security forces. Finally, only
the Sunnis effused about the ITF and Turkey, calling the
former the only party that truly represents Tal Afaris and
the latter Iraq's most helpful neighbor.

Comment
--------------


11. (C) One final Turkoman claim, also nearly unanimous,
gives hope for Kirkuk: that Kirkuk's ethnic groups have no
fundamental problem with each other, and Kirkuk's problems
come from the outside. The claim is admittedly common in
Iraq - Shia and Sunni Arabs often argued the same even as
entire neighborhoods of Baghdad cleansed themselves by sect.
Kirkuk, however, has no major grassroots militias slugging it
out in the streets. External political conflicts over Kirkuk
abound: the GOI and KRG both claim it, KRG-sponsored
politicians mismanage it, new arrivals - Arabs before 2003
and Kurds after - rile native Kirkukis, al-Qa'ida launches
periodic attacks, and KRG security forces keep the province
under an iron fist. While all of these risk homegrown
violence in the future, none has done so on a large scale to
this point. Kirkuk's best chance for stability may be
maximizing its local autonomy, whether inside or outside the
KRG, so as to exploit this underlying ability to coexist.
CROCKER