{"id":7574,"date":"2008-11-22T16:47:23","date_gmt":"2008-11-22T13:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/?p=7574"},"modified":"2024-09-10T16:57:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-10T13:57:34","slug":"turkmen-kurds-and-the-capital-city-of-turkmeneli","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2008\/11\/22\/turkmen-kurds-and-the-capital-city-of-turkmeneli\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkmen, Kurds and the capital city of Turkmeneli"},"content":{"rendered":"

Turkmen, Kurds and the capital city of Turkmeneli<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mofak Salman<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

A key to understanding why the maintenance of Iraq’s territorial integrity is viewed by many as critical is knowledge of the country’s enormous ethnic and religious diversity, the aspirations of these groups and the problems they now face. One of these ethno-linguistic groups is the Turkmen<\/span><\/span> [<\/span><\/a>]<\/span><\/span>, who have made a major effort to define themselves, both internally and to the world community. Their real population has always been suppressed by the authorities in Iraq for political reasons and is officially estimated at 2%, whereas in reality their number should be put between 2.5 and 3 million, i.e. 12% of the Iraqi population. The Turkmen of Iraq settled in Turkmeneli <\/span>(Turkmen land) <\/span><\/span>[<\/span><\/a>]<\/span><\/span>. Over the centuries, Turkmen have played a constructive role in Iraq, either by defending against foreign invaders or by bringing civilisation. Their monuments and architectural remains exist all over Iraq and they lived in harmony with all ethnic groups around them. They lived with justice and tolerance.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The Turkmen are a Turkic group with a unique heritage and culture, as well as linguistic, historical and cultural links with the surrounding Turkic groups, such as those in Turkey and Azerbaijan. Their spoken language is closer to Azeri but their official written language is similar to the Turkish spoken in present-day Turkey. The Turkmen of Iraq settled in Turkmeneli in three successive and constant migrations from Central Asia, and increased their numbers; this enabled them to establish six states in Iraq: <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

1. The Seljuks<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

2. The Atabegs<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

3. The Ilkhanids<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

4. The Jalairids<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

5. The Kara Koyunlu, \u201cBlack sheep\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

6. The Ak Koyunlu, \u201cWhite sheep\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Turkmen have been living in present Iraq<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>for over a millennium. Yet, since they were left outside the borders of a new Turkey<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>in an artificially created Iraq, Turkmen felt the heavy-handed treatment by successive Arab<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>rulers, the worst of whom were the Ba\u2019ath Party. Though the Turkmen of Iraq consist one of the three major entities of<\/span> the modern Iraqi State, the Turkmen have had the least of advantages. Since the foundation of Iraq<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>in the aftermath of the First World War, the existence of Turkmen has been denied by the official regimes in Baghdad<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>in accordance with the state\u2019s policy<\/span>. It was the attempt at sealing the border with Turkey<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>that motivated the Baghdad regime, and their protector Britain, to deliberately ignore the existence of the Turkmen people in the early years of Iraq. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n

For decades, since the creation of the Iraqi State in 1921, the Turkmen of Iraq and their plight have been completely ignored by the international community. They have been the least listened to outside Iraq and the least defended by their own government. Indeed, for decades, the Turkmen have been denied their basic human rights in Iraq and have faced total indifference from the international community.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The disregard of the Turkmen\u2019s historical role and achievements in Iraq, the denial of their true representation as the third largest ethnic group and, consequently, their marginalisation in Iraq was initiated by the British colonial authorities at the end of World War One in 1918, for geopolitical and economical reasons. The British facilitated the separation of the Mosul Vilayat \u2018Mosul Province\u2019 (now representing five Iraqi provinces: Mosul, Kirkuk, Erbil, Duhok and Suleymaniyah) from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) in order to control the huge oil reserves of Kirkuk which was inhabited mainly by the Turkmen, as it had been for centuries.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

However, after the British invasion of Iraq in 1918, the Turkmen began to experience a different situation. They were branded unjustly as being loyal to Turkey: they were removed from the administration, pushed into isolation and ignored. Then, their fundamental human rights in culture and education were violated by the closure of their schools between 1933 and 1937.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Under the constitution, drawn up in 1932, the Kurds and the Turkmen had the right to use their own languages in schools and government offices and to have their own language press. With the Arabs, the Kurds were recognised in the first constitution of monarchical Iraq as one of the three main component groups of the Iraqi nation. However, constitutional rights were acknowledged to minorities in Iraq, with <\/span>the Royal Constitution of 21st March 1925, Article 16: stating, \u201cAs determined by a general programme prescribed by law, each of the minorities originating from various nations has the right to set up schools where education is provided in the language<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>used by that minority and is entitled to be in charge of these schools.\u201d It was stated in the Royal Constitution, which was valid until 1958, that the Iraqi State consisted of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen and other minorities.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Moreover, according to Article 14 of the same constitution, Turkmen<\/span>, like other minorities, were also entitled to receive an education in their own language and to be in charge of their own educational institutions. In fact, until the proclamation of the republic, various constitutional amendments did not cause ethnic or political discrimination. However, in 1933, the final version of Article 17 of the constitution declared Arabic as the official language, with legally defined exceptions. Legislation number 74, published in 1931, and entitled \u2018Native Languages\u2019 had clearly stipulated these exceptions. This law permitted all judicial processes to be conducted in the Turkmen language and primary school education to be in the Turkish language in all areas where Turkmen lived; foremost among these being Kirkuk<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and Erbil<\/span>, and these rights were under constitutional guarantee. However, in 1936, after the resignation of Hikmat Suleiman, the brother of Sadrazam (Chief Minister) Mahmud Shavket Pasha, from the post of Prime Minister to which he had been appointed two years previously, the new military regime began a campaign<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>of taking back the rights given by the constitution. Thus, the Turkmen of Iraq<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>lost the right to be educated in their native tongue. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The period of monarchy, from 1932 to 1958, saw the removal of Turkmen from government posts and their deportation to Arab areas. The suppression of the Turkmen peaked in 1946 when they were subjected to what is historically known as the Gawer Baghi<\/em> massacre; when the police opened fire on unarmed protesters among the Iraqi oil workers in Kirkuk. Since then, and despite the formal independence of Iraq from Great Britain and the end of the British mandate in 1932, successive Iraqi governments have applied the same policies of marginalisation and discrimination towards the Turkmen as those that were initiated and applied by the British in 1918, and for the same geopolitical and economical reasons!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n

The military coup of 1958 that toppled the monarchy first brought rays of hope for the Turkmen when they heard radio announcements by coup leader General Abdul-Kerim Qasim <\/em>and his deputy General Abdul-Salam Arif<\/em> that Iraq was made up of three main ethnic groups and Turkmen were one of them. Turkmen interpreted these statements as the end of the suppression.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

However, happy days did not last long. After the coup of 1958, General Abdul-Kerim Qasim<\/em> declared an amnesty and, because of this, a Kurdish rebel leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani<\/em> returned from the Soviet Union and started negotiating for a Kurdish autonomous region. The situation of the Turkmen deteriorated dramatically and drastically because of the hegemonic ambitions of Mullah Mustafa Barzani<\/em> and his plans for an independent Kurdish state in the north of Iraq, as well as his demand for the oil wealth of Kirkuk which was not only a necessity but also the main motivation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The existence of Turkmen in the north of Iraq, side-by-side with the Kurds, and the Turkmen presence in great numbers in Kirkuk, where for centuries they represented the majority, were seen and felt by Mullah Mustafa Barzani<\/em> as obstacles to the realisation of his dreams for an independent Kurdish state and the control of Kirkuk’s oil wealth.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

During the time of General Abdul-Karim Qasim<\/em>, the Turkmen suffered marginalisation and discrimination from both the Kurds and the Iraqi communists who dominated the regime in Iraq. They faced internal deportation, exile, arbitrary arrest and detention, confiscation of properties and agricultural land and, worst of all, the massacre of 120 of their intellectuals and community leaders on the eve of the first anniversary of the revolution on 14th July 1959 by the Kurdish rebel leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani<\/em> and his Kurdish followers allied to the Iraqi communists. Kirkuk was put under curfew and its population slaughtered by Communists and Kurds. The streets of Kirkuk were filled with blood and witnessed one of its more brutal moments in history. The Turkmen in Kirkuk were attacked under the false pretext that they helped the Mosul resistance against the central government. The Kirkuk massacre was totally disregarded by the world and the whole of humanity ignored it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It was only after this massacre that the Communist Kurds became aggressive enough to negotiate for the inclusion of Kirkuk in their autonomous region. During this period (1958\u20131963), a mass migration of the Kurds, from their villages and towns in the north-east of Iraq to the Turkmen region and especially to the cities of Kirkuk and Tuz Khormatu, were organised and implemented in order to increase the Kurdish presence in Kirkuk and alter the demography of this large Turkmen city.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/em><\/h2>\n

The ensuing era of General Abdul-Salam Arif (1963\u20131967) was one of the best periods for Turkmen in Iraq. The culprits of the 1959 Kirkuk massacre were hanged in the two big squares of Kirkuk by the government. Turkmen were allowed to run cultural associations and schools, publish magazines and newspapers in the Latin characters of Turkish and get some posts in government. This made them very happy and they demonstrated excellently that as citizens of Iraq they could work for their country and live in co-operation with other Iraqis.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a>)<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

After the coup d’\u00e9tat of the 17th July 1968, which brought the Ba’ath party to power in Iraq, efforts were made to end the Kurdish rebellion in the north-east of the country. Generous incentives were presented to the Kurdish rebel leader, Mullah Mustafa Barzani<\/em>, by the Ba’ath regime in 1970 to put an end to his rebellion by offering him an autonomous Kurdish region with Erbil city (another Turkmen city) as its capital. In doing this, the Iraqi government acted in total disregard of the Turkmen interests in Iraq and particularly of those of the 300,000 unfortunate Turkmen of Erbil, who were sacrificed by the Ba’ath regime and offered as a \u2018present\u2019 to Mullah Mustafa Barzani<\/em> in return for his acceptance to end the Kurdish rebellion.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 1970s, as it became more and more clear that Mullah Mustafa Barzani<\/em>‘s ambitions and plans were to take over Kirkuk, control its oil wealth and declare an independent Kurdish state, the Iraqi government (Ba’ath regime) acted to maintain Iraq’s territorial unity and to counter Barzani’s ambitions. However, the Iraqi government refused to accede to the Kurdish rebels\u2019 demands to include the Turkmen city of Kirkuk as part of the Kurdish autonomous region for economical and political reasons and because the overwhelming majority of the population in Kirkuk were Turkmen. Moreover, <\/span>Saddam Hussein\u2019s government did not carry out the agreement of 1970; thus, the Kurdish rebels renewed their fight against the central government in Baghdad.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, t<\/span>he Ba\u2019ath party period commencing in 1968 had opened one of the darkest chapters in Turkmen history. <\/span>The Turkmen Cultural Directorate that was originally set up by the government to bring Turkmen under strict control was not working according to the government\u2019s plans. Thus, Saddam Hussein\u2019s regime started a new policy, which is commonly referred to as Arabisation<\/em><\/span><\/span> (\u2018ta\u2019rib\u2019<\/em>), invoked by the Iraqi government programme. Arab<\/span> families were resettled from southern Iraq to replace and dilute the Turkmen population<\/span> <\/span>but the Turkmen opposed policies of the Ba’ath regime and vigorously contested the regime’s authoritarian Arabisation policy. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By 1972, the Iraqi government prohibited both the study of the Turkmen language<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and Turkmen media, and in 1973 any reference to the Turkmen was omitted from the provisional constitution. During the 1980s, the regime, the Ba\u2019ath Party, prohibited even public use of the Turkmen language and the constitution of 1990 only states that the \u2018people of Iraq\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>consist of \u2018Arabs and Kurds\u2019.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

As I have stated, to reduce the concentration of the Turkmen population in Turkmeneli regions in general, and Kirkuk in particular, the Iraqi government established an Arabisation<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>policy, which can be defined as the systematic forcible transfer of the Turkmen and Kurdish<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>populations, aimed at changing the demographic nature of northern Iraq<\/span>. Arab<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>families who were brought from southern Iraq to replace and dilute the Turkmen and Kurd populations<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>was carried out under the Iraqi government programme of Arabisation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The forced and arbitrary transfer of populations is not permissible under international law and is a crime against humanity. Nevertheless, Saddam Hussein\u2019s government sought to alter the demographic make-up of northern Iraq in order to reduce the political power and presence of Turkmen and Kurds and to consolidate control over this oil-rich region; this covered areas reaching from the town of Mandeli, close to the Iranian border, to the Syrian and Turkish border areas around Telafer<\/span>. <\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Many Turkmen and Kurdish villages were bulldozed and new Arab settlements were built nearby. The main object of the Arabisation policy was to reduce the Turkmen population in Kirkuk and the surrounding regions. Therefore, the Iraqi government annexed the district of Tuz Khormatu, which was linked to Kirkuk city until 1970. Because of the Arabisation policy, the Ba\u2019ath regime decided to link it to a newly established province, called Saladdin<\/em> (Tikrit<\/em>), which is 130 km from Kirkuk, whereas Tuz Khormatu is 75 km from Kirkuk. Nevertheless, the district of Tuz Khormatu city was annexed to the Salahaddin<\/em> province by an official government legislation number 434, which was issued on 11th September 1989. [<\/span><\/a>] In addition, the Ba\u2019ath regime linked the Kifri<\/em> district to the Diyala<\/em> province. The Turkmen district of Altun Kopri<\/em>, which was annexed from Erbil, governed the Kirkuk province; thus the area that Kirkuk governed was reduced from 19,543 km2<\/sup> to 9,426 km2<\/sup>, <\/sup>becoming the fourth largest province in Iraq. [<\/span><\/a>] <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The properties and most other assets seized from the Turkmen victims were distributed among the new Arab arrivals as part of a package of economic incentives. Simultaneously, the Iraqi government brought in landless Arabs from the nearby Al-Jazeera<\/em> desert in Northern Iraq and others from central and southern Iraq to settle in the Turkmen area. Furthermore, titles for the rich agricultural lands<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>seized from the Kurds and Turkmen were invalidated upon their expulsion and the land was then leased under annual contracts to Arab farmers. Many of those expelled have, for over a decade, been living in camps for the internally displaced in the northern Kurdish-controlled governorates outside Iraq. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The forced mass displacement of populations based on their ethnic identity and attempts to Arabise Kirkuk<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>and Tuz Khormatu date back to the discovery of major oil<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>reserves in Kirkuk city in the 1920s, while Iraq<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>was still under British<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>mandate. Oil<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>from the Kirkuk fields was not successfully extracted until 1927, but oil rights were first conceded to the Iraqi Petroleum Company<\/em> consortium on 14th<\/sup> March 1925.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Arabisation<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/em>policy first occurred on a massive scale in the second half of the 1970s. During the Arabisation period, Saddam Hussein\u2019s <\/span>\u00a0<\/span>government controlled the oil industry. In addition, the Ba\u2019ath regime brought in large numbers of Arab<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>workers instead of employing local Turkmen and Kurds in the Iraqi Petroleum Company<\/em>. The Turkmen were also excluded when the Iraqi government embarked on massive irrigation projects that began in the 1930s on the Hawija, Qaraj<\/em> and Qari-Teppa<\/em> plains around Kirkuk, which became a rich agricultural region. Later projects helped the Iraqi government to settle several large nomadic Arab tribes from southern Iraq on these newly fertile lands.<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n

<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>, General Ahmed Hassan Bakir, on 24th January 1970, Article 5, stated that t<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>he people of Iraq<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>consisted of two groups: Arabs and Kurds. The national and the legal rights of all ethnic minorities were acknowledged within the unity of Iraq. The cultural<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span>rights seemed to be set to include the cultural rights of the minorities in Iraq. In this declaration, the section of the Turkmen rights indicated that:<\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/em><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n