Yalman Haceroğlu interviews Turkmeneli Party leader: This is what made Kirkuk a focus of political conflicts
- The crises that Kirkuk suffers related to the policies of the Kurdish parties
- We presented in the Turkmen Eli Party the Kirkuk province Project, which received great support.
- The best solution for the administration of Kirkuk is to form the Kirkuk province to end the conflicts.
- The majority of the Turkmen parties are formal, far from party specifications, structures and political activities
- The Turkmen people became the subject of marginalisation because of the weakness of the Turkmen parties and the media
- Electoral laws must be enacted to achieve fair representation of the Turkmen in the government
Kirkuk city, which is being discussed in international forums for its underground energy and geographical location, has become the subject of disputes between local political forces and is capable of producing crises to be available for regional powers to intervene . What attracts attention and attention is that this city has been exposed to demographic change policies before and after 2003 and continues to this day.
To shed light on the sequences of events and crises that have affected this city, we interview the leader of the Turkmeneli Party, Engineer Riyaz Sarıkahya .
Welcome to 180 Investigations
1-Why has Kirkuk city become the subject of demographic change policies since the seventies of the last century until now?
Because Kirkuk was the main source of Iraqi oil exports until the seventies of the last century.
For this reason, the Kurdish parties were trying to affiliation Kirkuk to their region that was to be established at that time to achieve a financial source for their region .
In return, the central governments’ attempts to ensure and continue the dominance of Kirkuk brought many many Arab citizens to Kirkuk and carried out Arabization operations in the city that continued until 2003. After the Kurdish parties took control of the administration in Kirkuk, they brought many many Kurdish citizens to the city in order to create a balance with the Arab element that was brought during Saddam’s rule. This process continued until 2017, when the federal government took control of Kirkuk and exploited this control to bring hundreds of thousands of Arab citizens from other governorates such as Salah al-Din and Diyala to the city of Kirkuk in a tangible and clear manner, which led to the Arabization of the city of Kirkuk for the second time.
All these attempts led to a demographic change in the city of Kirkuk, which had a Turkmen identity for hundreds of years.
2- Do you think that the crises that chase the city of Kirkuk are crises fabricated by local political forces that rely on international or regional powers?
The main reason for the attempts to change the demographics of Kirkuk city was primarily due to the views and policies of the local Kurdish parties, and there were no regional reasons and the impact of the regional policies of Kirkuk was minimal. However, during the liberation of Iraq from Saddam, the US administration granted the administration of Kirkuk city to the Kurdish parties as a reward and honor for their positions and cooperation with the US forces during the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, and this US policy led to opening the way for the implementation of the Kurdification policy for Kirkuk city from 2003 to 2017.
3- As the Iraqi Turkmeneli Party, have you presented projects related to Kirkuk city politically, economically and socially?
We in the Turkmeneli. Party presented (Kirkuk Region Project) which received great support from many of the political parties in Kirkuk. A request for a referendum on Kirkuk’s regionalization was submitted to the federal government in early 2006 after more than a third of the provincial council members signed, but the federal government did not meet this constitutional request for fear of the Kurdish parties at that time because the Kurdish parties were requesting a referendum on annexing Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Region based on Article 140.
On the social side, we presented the Kirkuk Council of Elders project to consolidate relations between the components.
4- In your political view, as you are experienced in Turkmen politics, what are the realistic solutions derived from the essence of the city for the Kirkuk crisis?
We see that the ideal solution for administering Kirkuk is to form a Kirkuk Region, which ends the conflicts between the Kurdistan Region and the federal government on the Kirkuk issue. And to form a joint rotating administration and distribute key positions equally among the components
5- How do you view the reality of the political activity of the Turkmen parties to preserve the identity of Kirkuk and fixed in the literature of the Turkmeneli Party?
The majority of the Turkmen parties are far from the specifications and compositions of the parties and political activities, but rather they are parties of title and formality and headquarters in the first degree and are artificial for personal purposes and calculations.
Therefore, these parties lack political activities and influences. Despite this, there is a section of the Turkmen parties that have a history of struggle against the Saddam regime and have honorable and influential positions and political activities that represent the Turkmen movement. Thanks to these real and basic parties, the federal, local, regional and international governments have made it necessary to take into account the Turkmen component in political equations, whether in Kirkuk, Iraq or the Kurdistan Region. At the forefront of these parties is the Turkmeneli. Party, which has political and administrative projects that concern Kirkuk, the region and Iraq.
6- How do you read the relationship of the Turkmen parties with each other first and with the central government?
The relationship between the Turkmen parties is a natural relationship based primarily on personal relationships between the officials of these parties rather than political and methodological points of view. However, during the election process, there are some electoral cooperations between these parties.
7-Is there marginalisation and exclusion of the Turkmen from the political process in Iraq? What are the reasons and factors?
This marginalisation varies from one stage to another, but it continues with a difference in percentages from one stage to another. The most prominent of this marginalisation is in the leadership of the High Electoral Commission in Baghdad and other governorates, which creates an opportunity for the Turkmen parties to lose in the elections and allows for a lot of fraud for non-Turkmen parties in the elections. There is marginalization in the Council of Ministers and the leadership of the police and army, contrary to Article 9 of the Iraqi Constitution. The main reason for this marginalization is the silence of the Turkmen parties and the Turkmen media and their failure to address this deliberate marginalization for the personal calculations of some of these parties and candidates at the expense of the interests of the Turkmen people. The silence of the Turkmen media and their failure to address this deliberate marginalization on these violations led to the creation of an opportunity for other components to seize the rights of the Turkmen people.
8- How can the marginalisation of the Turkmen from the political process be eliminated?
It will be through enacting electoral laws that stipulate fair representation for the Turkmen in line with the population size, which according to the 1977 statistics organized by the racist government was 6%. Therefore, we demand as a maximum the application of this percentage for fair representation in the federal government and its institutions, especially in the army, police, security and foreign agencies. And achieving a percentage of 32% in each of Kirkuk and Erbil, 20% in Nineveh and Salah al-Din, and 10% in Diyala and Baghdad governorates. And enacting laws based on Article 125 of the Iraqi Constitution regarding the rights of the Turkmen.
