Kurdishaspect.com – By Baqi Barzani
Once encore, due to external meddling, a much awaited census in Kirkuk was postponed without taking into account the views of the Kurds.
Every time the census approaches, a new pretext is fabricated to prevent it from being implemented, a very obvious indication that certain powers run the whole scenario behind the scene. Kurds’ have mislaid their decision-making and policy-shaping function and clout, and most significantly, their views do not make a distinction in vital national affairs to any further extent.
Iraq’s neighboring hostile countries are being authorized to tear Iraq further apart by their unwarranted direct interference into the internal affairs of a sovereign sham state, and continue to put into operation their superfluous design and agendas on the politically reliant Iraqi trembling government. They threaten the prevailing stability and national unity and consciously create impediments for the Iraqis to disallow them to settle their discrepancies among themselves through independent judgment. They stir up the general public to create bedlam and seek to fuel an ethno-sectarian conflict.
Unfounded accusations have recently surfaced charging that the Kurds discriminate against and persecute other minorities. The destructive role of Iraqi neighboring countries, especially Turkey, is an obvious fact. Turkish intelligence apparatus was established in south Kurdistan {Iraq} in 1991, with the approval of Kurdish administration, with the aim of carrying out covert operation versus Kurdish fighters holed up in “Qandil” mountains, undermining Kurdish administration in South Kurdistan {Iraq} and eventually conducting espionage activities in the region. Turkish military outposts continue to operate in various parts of Kurdistan, despite public’s huge rage and growing frustration.
Turkey has long been providing: training, arms and funds to the “Turkmen Front “as a leverage vis-a-vis the Kurds. Turkey aims to impose a demographic falsification in the region by resettling thousand of Turkish citizens in and surrounding Kirkuk.
The population of Turkmen in Kirkuk hardly surpassed four thousand in 1991, according to the Iraqi Bureau of census. Now it’s figure has multiplied almost thirty times as much, most of whom even do not hold proper and legal documents. This ”Turkification” process designed by Turkey, has been put into the execution stage clandestinely since 2003.
In an effort to portray Kurdish legitimate right of relocation illegitimate, anti-Kurdish propagandas have kicked off to broaden, another calculated plot to strip Kurds of their inherent rights.
Major US newspapers have edited about the postponement of Iraqi census, including: TIME, NYTIMES, RUETERS, WASHNGTONPOST, etc.
Kirkuk is an integral part of Kurdistan and any attempt to Turkify or Arabize it is a deliberate act of destroying the ethnic identity of a nation. History strongly testifies that before 1974, there were only 32 Turkish families in the entire Kirkuk region, with the Kurds constituting 92% of the population. In 1974, Kirkuk was the key bone of contention in autonomy negotiations between Kurds and despot Saddam.
The census has been delayed until December 5th, 2010. Further prolonging the execution of census can only make things more complicated and even plunge the country into a new-fangled ethnic war, engulfing the entire region. The promised census must be held and honored as a result.
The US is liable to intervene to demonstrate its mediation capability in resolving issues among differing Iraqi components. Counting on the vicious role of neighboring countries in shaping critical decisions in their favor will do the Iraqi no good and can even jeopardize the entire democratic and political process.
Simultaneously, Kurds must gear up to take unilateral actions in case if their rights are trampled upon or things spiral out control.
Kirkuk will witness permanent stability, only when foreign powers cease interfering in its internal affairs and leave the Iraqi alone to determine their own destiny themselves.
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