KHANAQIN, DIYALA KURDS INFLEXIBLE ON DIBS DEMANDS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 001311 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/20/2019 TAGS: PREL KDEM PINS IZ SUBJECT: KHANAQIN, DIYALA KURDS INFLEXIBLE ON DIBS DEMANDS Classified By: Acting Pol Counselor John Fox for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d ). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Kurdish interlocutors in the Khanaqin district of Diyala province strongly believe that Khanaqin and surrounding areas must be part of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). They assert that Khanaqin's population has historically been overwhelmingly Kurdish (despite Saddam's Arabization program),that the KRG provides more support to Khanaqin than the Government of Iraq (GOI) or the Diyala provincial government, and that Arab and Turkman residents of Khanaqin also want to be part of the KRG. They are suspicious of negotiation outside the parameters of the Iraqi Constitution's Article 140 provisions for local referenda. As the District Council's Article 140 expert maintained, the Kurds "could relinquish (claims to territory in the province of) Wassit," but not in Diyala. Since the UNAMI DIBs research and the resulting reports introduce more elements for consideration than simple demography, and do not offer specific solutions to the boundary issues, Kurds in Khanaqin (who are unlikely to have read them at this stage) do not think the reports will help to resolve the dispute. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) PRT Diyala staff and Embassy poloff recently visited Khanaqin district in Diyala to speak with local officials and prepare a PRT satellite office there. We met with members of the Khanaqin District Council as well as provincial-level Kurdish officials. Khanaqin officials warmly welcomed us. UNANIMITY OF VISION: KHANAQIN MUST BE PART OF KRG -------------- -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Officials in Khanaqin's District Council are strikingly unanimous regarding Khanaqin's status: all -- Arab and Turkmen included -- emphasized that their priority is to unite Khanaqin with the KRG. In an introductory meeting with the District Council, each member introduced themselves, described their areas of responsibility, and concluded their remarks by stating that they want Khanaqin to be part of the KRG. The interim Qaimmaqam ("Mayor" of the district) Aref Adil Jassim, requested that USG urgently assist in the implementation of article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution. KHANAQIN IS AND WAS ORIGINALLY OVERWHELMINGLY KURDISH -------------- -------------- ¶4. (SBU) District Council members ground their desire to join the KRG in Khanaqin's historical and present-day ethnography. They observed that Khanaqin was largely Kurdish before Saddam Hussein instituted his Arabization program to expel Kurds from and invite Arabs into the area (from roughly 1975 to 2003). But Council members emphasized especially that the Kurdish population has mushroomed recently as Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and refugees coming home from other countries have returned to Khanaqin. Ali Ghazi, the Director of the Khanaqin IDP office, has official records of 4,900 Kurdish families, inhabitants of over 250 villages in Khanaqin district, who were forced to leave during the Arabization period. His statistics track over 17,500 Kurdish families who have returned in the past few years, raising the population of the area from roughly 15,000 in 1970 to 150,000 today. This is due in part to Kurdish children who left due to Arabization returning with their own families. KHANAQIN DERIVES MORE BENEFITS FROM THE KRG -------------- ¶5. (C) Aref, the interim Qaimmaqam, said that the "easiest way to improve Khanaqin's condition is to give it to the KRG." Khanaqin leaders maintain that the KRG has provided QKRG." Khanaqin leaders maintain that the KRG has provided more support and services to Khanaqin than the GOI or the Diyala provincial government. Ibrahim Bajellan, former Diyala Provincial Council Chair, alleged that other districts receive more funding and services from the Diyala government than Khanaqin. District Council member Samir Mohammad contended that the main problem Khanaqin has is that "we are attached to Diyala." He said that Khanaqin receives most of its funding for service projects from the KRG, while the Diyala government "only gives us a little money." The supervisor of electricity provision in Khanaqin (also a Kurd) boasted that Khanaqin residents have access to 24 hours of electricity due to the KRG's providing "99%" of the district's electrical power. Samir Mohammad also commented on the large discrepancy in security between Khanaqin and other parts of Diyala. He attributed the relative security and safety of Khanaqin to the KRG's large Peshmerga presence in Khanaqin. ¶6. (C) Mohammad Sheikh Rashid, (Kurdish) Council member in charge of service projects, remarked that "even the Turkmen and Arabs in Khanaqin want to be governed by the KRG." BAGHDAD 00001311 002 OF 002 Indeed, the Arab and Turkman Council members testified particularly passionately about their desire to have Khanaqin join the KRG. Rahim Abdal Najem, a Sunni Arab Council member, said that "as an Arab, I want to be part of Kurdistan." The Turkman Council member related that the reason she wanted to join the KRG was that "the KRG has done so many good things for Khanaqin." WASSIT UP FOR NEGOTIATION, BUT NOT DIYALA -------------- ¶7. (C) Adnan Mansour Khesro is the Deputy Qaimmaqam of the Council, and has a special focus on article 140 issues. He maintains a formidable database that tracks recent Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen population shifts in Khanaqin (departure from and return to the district) over the past 30 years, and includes names, family information, and compensation status of Khanaqin residents. In a general discussion about Kurdish priorities in the DIBs process, poloff asked about territorial claims Kurds might be willing to relinquish in a potential negotiation over disputed areas. Adnan answered with evident sincerity that the Kurds could potentially forswear claims to "Al Kut, Badrah, and other parts of Wassit." (COMMENT: These are well south of the DIBs areas. END COMMENT). When poloff asked if Kurds would consider dropping claims to specific places in Diyala to secure other areas for the KRG, Adnan responded resolutely that this was not possible: he maintained that everyone in those areas, even Arabs and Turkmen, would vote to be part of Kurdistan. To prevent that would go against article 140 and the constitution. REMARKS ON UNAMI -------------- ¶8. (C) Adnan was unimpressed with the UNAMI team that traveled to Khanaqin to research the DIBs issue, and with the recent UNAMI report on Khanaqin and the DIBs issue at large. While the UNAMI team "was nice," they did not show much interest in his population statistics on Khanaqin, and "they were more interested in the pre-Saddam history" of the area. Worse, he said, the UN did not offer any solutions to the boundary questions, not even suggesting solutions for specific areas that might be easier to conclude than others. Other Kurds with whom we spoke echoed this opinion of the UNAMI reports, whether they had read them or not. COMMENT -------------- ¶9. (C) Khanaqin Kurds' unanimous and repeated claim that the district must join the KRG, their emphasis on the article 140 referendum process for resolving DIBs, and their displeasure with the recent UNAMI reports highlights their deep skepticism of any GOI-KRG political solution that extends beyond the parameters laid down in article 140. Their reference to towns in the southern province of Wassit as legitimate points for negotiation are a sign of their intransigence, at least outwardly. ¶10. (SBU) Khanaqin has always been part of Diyala province, so making it a part of the KRG will by no means be easy. The city of Khanaqin was largely Kurdish, but the district contained Arabs, Turkmen, and Jews historically. The Arab and Turkman representatives at the meeting spoke in favor of Khanaqin being part of KRG, but we did not have additional meetings with Arab or Turkmen representatives alone -- which would have enabled us to gauge whether this sentiment is shared broadly in their communities or is just a result of Kurdish pressure. END COMMENT. HILL