{"id":13199,"date":"2009-06-18T20:25:55","date_gmt":"2009-06-18T18:25:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=13199"},"modified":"2023-04-15T20:43:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-15T17:43:46","slug":"some-in-kirkuk-fear-kurds-will-replace-us-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2009\/06\/18\/some-in-kirkuk-fear-kurds-will-replace-us-forces\/","title":{"rendered":"Some In Kirkuk Fear Kurds Will Replace U.S. Forces"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"caption\" style=\"margin: 0pt; width: 100%; padding: 0pt;\">\n<div class=\"watermark\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo\" src=\"https:\/\/gdb.rferl.org\/D53C59AD-3968-4696-9C7A-E7D9B21D13AA_w393_s.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/> <\/div>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<div><span class=\"date date_article_gap\">June 18, 2009<\/span><\/div>\n<p><span class=\"zoomMe\">KIRKUK, Iraq &#8212; Turkoman and Arab politicians in the multiethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk are concerned that Kurdish forces will fill the void after U.S. forces leave, RFE\/RL&#8217;s Radio Free Iraq reports.<\/p>\n<p>Ali Mahdi, a spokesman for the Turkoman bloc on the Kirkuk provincial council, said that when U.S. forces withdraw on June 30 &#8220;we want the government to replace them with Iraqi forces from the middle and south because Kirkuk&#8217;s security forces are predominantly Kurdish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Muhammad Khalil al-Juburi, a member of the provincial council&#8217;s Arab bloc, said that most of the Arab fighters fighting Al-Qaeda as members of the Awakening Councils &#8220;are stationed outside the city of Kirkuk and until all ethnic groups are fairly represented in the city\u2019s security agencies and administration, we propose that Iraqi forces replace U.S. troops.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Layla Hassan, a member of the Kurdish bloc on the council, said the Turkoman and Arab concerns are &#8220;unfounded&#8221; and deploying Arab forces from the south would be &#8220;counterproductive.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>She added that &#8220;such a move would be unconstitutional as Kirkuk is recognized by all parties as a disputed area.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>U.S. forces have often been called on to mediate ethnic confrontations in the oil-rich region. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"zoomMe\">https:\/\/www.rferl.org\/a\/Some_In_Kirkuk_Fear_Kurds_Will_Replace_US_Forces\/1757185.html<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 June 18, 2009 KIRKUK, Iraq &#8212; Turkoman and Arab politicians in the multiethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk are concerned that Kurdish forces will fill the void after U.S. forces leave, RFE\/RL&#8217;s Radio Free Iraq reports. Ali Mahdi, a spokesman for the Turkoman bloc on the Kirkuk provincial council, said that when U.S. forces withdraw [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":783771,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,34],"tags":[166,165,1660],"class_list":["post-13199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-iraq","category-usa","tag-kerkuk","tag-turkmen","tag-turkoman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}