PRT KIRKUK: ARTICLE 23 COMMITTEE - LIMITED

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 000428 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/17/2024 TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM IZ SUBJECT: PRT KIRKUK: ARTICLE 23 COMMITTEE - LIMITED PROGRESS ON SECOND VISIT TO KIRKUK REF: BAGHDAD 305 Classified By: PRT Kirkuk Team Leader Howard Keegan for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: The Article 23 committee of the Council of Representatives followed up on its initial visit to Kirkuk last week (REFTEL) by returning on February 17. A promising agenda proposed by UNAMI covering voter registries, land issues and power sharing was derailed by the Committee's delayed departure from Baghdad combined with their failure to take advantage of local experts once they arrived in Kirkuk. Though they reached agreement on how to divide the top three jobs in Kirkuk's provincial government, they were at odds on whether elections could be held immediately after the implementation of power sharing or whether a resolution of voter registry issues must occur first END SUMMARY. -------------- AGENDA BLOWN AWAY BY BAGHDAD SANDSTORMS -------------- ¶2. (C) The draft agenda by UNAMI proposed eight hours of meetings covering the following matters: voter registries, featuring a panel of provincial officials from Kirkuk responsible for ration cards, identity cards, statistics, Article 140 implementation, and voting; a case study involving the Laylan sub-district; land possession rights, with select members of the Commission for the Resolution of Real Property Disputes (CRRPD) and the official in charge of real property registration; and allocation of provincial government jobs among the principal ethnicities in the province. Due to a delayed departure from Baghdad, when the Committee finally arrived in Kirkuk, they had only half that time available. ¶3. (C) The group which finally gathered included all seven members of the Article 23 committee, several advisers to them, four officials from UNAMI, and a PRT IPAO. When opening the meeting, Peter Bartu, the head of the UNAMI team present, proposed discussing land issues, since the CRRPD had its two designated members present, as was Hameed Obeidi, the official in charge of property registration in the province. He said if time allowed, they could then address power sharing. His proposal was met with a hail of resistance, lead by Khalid al-Shwani, who was designated the chairman of the afternoon's meeting. After chastising UNAMI for allegedly failing to clear the agenda in advance with them and for scheduling the meeting when Kirkuk's top officials (both the Governor and Provincial Council Chairman and their deputies) were out of the country, the group said that they were prepared only to act on the issues of power sharing and the administrative matter of setting up a local office and hiring staff in Kirkuk. ¶4. (C) Bartu countered that the CRRPD was present and would merely make a presentation ) there would be no requirement to act upon it at the day's meeting. Despite support from Yonaddam Kanna, the Committee's Christian member, the Committee ruled they would cover only power sharing and the administrative issues related to office space and staff, so the CRRPD members present left the meeting. -------------- -------------- ELECTIONS OR CORRECTION OF VOTER REGISTRIES FIRST? -------------- -------------- ¶5. (C) Proceeding with the issue of power-sharing, the Committee reviewed correspondence between the Committee and the Kirkuk Provincial Council over the past week regarding which ethnic bloc would have the right to appoint their Qwhich ethnic bloc would have the right to appoint their candidate to the positions of Governor, Deputy Governor and Provincial Council (PC) Chairman. (NOTE: PRT Kirkuk forwarded the text of these letters to the Embassy earlier this week. END NOTE). To summarize, the Committee established that the Kurds would designate the Governor, the Turkomen would choose the PC Chairman, and the Arabs would designate the least powerful position, the Deputy Governor. Debate arose over whether to push immediately to reallocate the top three jobs. The Turkomen were in favor of this, while al-Shwani of the Kurds wanted each member to make their proposal on this at the next meeting. ¶6. (C) The discussion also was animated when al-Shwani raised the issue of whether the three elements (power-sharing, land reform and voter registries) of Article 23 must be resolved together before elections could take place, or whether they could be addressed sequentially. He said that the reallocation of the top three provincial jobs should take place not later than March 31, and then BAGHDAD 00000428 002.4 OF 002 provincial elections should take place. Elections should not await a resolution of the voter registries and land possession issues, since &these could require over three years to decide.8 He did, however, demand guarantees that reallocation of lower-level government jobs would take place within two years as a quid pro quo for the Kurds, agreement to proceed with elections. ¶7. (C) Omar al-Juburi forcefully countered that the voter registries must be corrected before elections can take place, due to the politically-motivated immigration into the province since April 2003. He conceded that that land possession issues would take years to resolve and therefore the elections should not be held up by them. Mohammed al-Tamimi backed him on this point, saying correcting voter registries, rather that power-sharing, was the crucial issue. Sarteeb Kakai concurred with the need to resolve the voter registry issue prior to elections. (COMMENT ) the Kurds, push for elections before correcting the voter registry is clearly an attempt to capitalize on their political parties, inducement of Kurds with no previous ties to move to Kirkuk province after the fall of the Saddam regime in 2003). The Arab Committee members also stated that the Arabs should get to designate a crucial Director General position since they received the least powerful of the top three provincial jobs. -------------- OTHER ISSUES -------------- ¶7. (C) Without a definitive resolution of whether elections should precede voter registry review or vice-versa, the Committee then addressed establishing a local office in Kirkuk and hiring experts and related staff to gather data for their report. Members of the Committee had repeatedly mentioned the need for a subcommittee to gather statistics on the ethnic breakdown of the government work force in the province. ¶8. (C) Kurds Sarteeb Kakai and al-Shwani devoted considerable time to the federal government's actions involving the Iraqi Army presence in Kirkuk and a recent letter from the Ministry of Interior announcing that 241 police from outside of Kirkuk (and allegedly all beholden to the Dawa Party) would be reassigned to Kirkuk. Noting that the relatively stable security situation in Kirkuk did not merit the presence of Iraqi Army forces and that the high unemployment rate in Kirkuk demanded that additional police personnel be selected from the local population, they said these actions by the government in Baghdad were purely politically motivated. Al-Shwani said such actions were causing the Kurds to seek guarantees regarding their &concession8 of relinquishing one of the top three provincial positions. Al-Shwani closed that meeting saying the Committee had resolved to proceed with opening the local office and hire its experts. He said the experts would gather relevant data to facilitate deliberations at the next meeting, to be held in Baghdad on February 19. He announced the next meeting would discuss further how to distribute power. ¶9. (C) Comment. Rather than take advantage of the provincial CRRPD experts who had come to the meeting, the Committee chose to address the issue of dividing up provincial government positions, which they could have dealt with in Baghdad and saved the hours required to make the trip up to Kirkuk. As a result, Muhammed al-Bayati's comment that the day's meeting was &one of the worst8 of the committee's few meetings is difficult to refute. While the resolution of the Qmeetings is difficult to refute. While the resolution of the land possession issue possibly can be deferred until after provincial elections take place in Kirkuk, the review and correction of the voter registries realistically cannot. Therefore, the Committee needs to commence addressing the voter registry issue immediately if they are to have a hope of completing their work by March 31. End Comment. BUTENIS