Kurd-Arab tensions may threaten Iraq calm
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Reuters
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Kasım 14, 2008 00:00
MOSUL, Iraq - Mosul, a city where religions and ethnicities collide, witnesses rising ethnic tensions between Kurds and Arabs on oil, land and influence. Many fear the disputes threaten calm in Iraq as officials say al-Qaeda benefits from power battle
In battle-scarred Mosul, Kurds and Arabs trade accusations rooted in ethnic rivalry and a battle for oil and power that many fear threaten security in Iraq.
Kurds make up about a quarter of Mosul's residents and represent a powerful minority in this northern Iraqi city still shaken by car bombs and assassinations. The army in Mosul is mainly Kurdish, which angers Sunni Arabs who make up about 60 percent of the 2.8 million population of the province of which Mosul is the capital.
Mosul, a strategic city where cultures, religions and ethnicities collide, saw an exodus of thousands of Christians last month following a campaign of threats and violence against them, although some have since returned.
U.S. military officials blamed Sunni Muslim al-Qaeda or similar Islamist groups in Mosul, which they say is the last big city in Iraq still with a large al-Qaeda presence.
Tool for al-Qaeda
Colonel Dildar Jamel Mohammed, a Kurd who commands an Iraqi Army battalion in western Mosul, said insurgents were stoking ethnic tension and trying to sabotage security. "Al-Qaeda uses this as a tool," he said, referring to the Sunni Islamists who, in Iraq, are almost all Arabs.
Ambassador Thomas Krajeski, a senior U.S. official in Baghdad, described the ancient city on the Tigris River as "where all the fault lines that exist in Iraq come together. "It is a place where Kurd and Arab officials can solve some of these key issues: what does it mean to be a federal Iraq?" That question takes on a new urgency as Kurds, who make up a fifth of Iraq's mainly Arab population, vie for control of disputed cities, towns and villages along the "green line" that divides region from the rest of Iraq.
Iraqi Kurds, who have long dreamed of their own state, hoped to strengthen their hand within Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, who killed tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s.
Their economic and territorial ambitions appear more at risk as the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Arab, grows more assertive and Washington charts a course for withdrawing its 150,000 troops in Iraq.
Masoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, described the gathering resentment some Kurds feel towards Baghdad.
"We seem to still be under the influence of a totalitarian regime. The one that takes over power thinks he has the last word in everything," he said in a recent newspaper interview.
Kurdish and central government officials set up a special commission this summer to try to defuse such tensions.
Gareth Stansfield, an expert at the University of Exeter, said the standoff is really about defining what Kurdish position will be, politically and geographically. "It can't be put off any longer. The pressure has become so intense that something has to give," he said.
Land, oil, power at stake
Brigadier General Tony Thomas, the top U.S. commander in Mosul, said Maliki increasingly "sees the Kurds, specifically the Peshmerga, as a militia, unauthorized, shouldn't be there." What many forget, he says, is that Peshmerga were invited to help keep the peace in some of Iraq's most troublesome areas. Thomas said Kurds are more nervous about what they see as Baghdad's growing unilateralizm as U.S. troops prepare to leave.
Behind the quarrels is oil. Many of the disputed areas along the "green line" have promising reserves, especially Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city that accounts for a quarter of Iraq's oil exports. Kurds consider Kirkuk their historic capital. Iraq's constitution provides for a referendum on control of the city. That vote has been postponed indefinitely, but Kurds think they would win it.
Arab-Kurdish disputes have so far held up legislation on how to share oil The impasse affects not just Iraq's oil sector, but all investment, casting a shadow on the U.S. project in Iraq.
Kurds make up about a quarter of Mosul's residents and represent a powerful minority in this northern Iraqi city still shaken by car bombs and assassinations. The army in Mosul is mainly Kurdish, which angers Sunni Arabs who make up about 60 percent of the 2.8 million population of the province of which Mosul is the capital.
Mosul, a strategic city where cultures, religions and ethnicities collide, saw an exodus of thousands of Christians last month following a campaign of threats and violence against them, although some have since returned.
U.S. military officials blamed Sunni Muslim al-Qaeda or similar Islamist groups in Mosul, which they say is the last big city in Iraq still with a large al-Qaeda presence.
Tool for al-Qaeda
Colonel Dildar Jamel Mohammed, a Kurd who commands an Iraqi Army battalion in western Mosul, said insurgents were stoking ethnic tension and trying to sabotage security. "Al-Qaeda uses this as a tool," he said, referring to the Sunni Islamists who, in Iraq, are almost all Arabs.
Ambassador Thomas Krajeski, a senior U.S. official in Baghdad, described the ancient city on the Tigris River as "where all the fault lines that exist in Iraq come together. "It is a place where Kurd and Arab officials can solve some of these key issues: what does it mean to be a federal Iraq?" That question takes on a new urgency as Kurds, who make up a fifth of Iraq's mainly Arab population, vie for control of disputed cities, towns and villages along the "green line" that divides region from the rest of Iraq.
Iraqi Kurds, who have long dreamed of their own state, hoped to strengthen their hand within Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, who killed tens of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s.
Their economic and territorial ambitions appear more at risk as the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite Arab, grows more assertive and Washington charts a course for withdrawing its 150,000 troops in Iraq.
Masoud Barzani, leader of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, described the gathering resentment some Kurds feel towards Baghdad.
"We seem to still be under the influence of a totalitarian regime. The one that takes over power thinks he has the last word in everything," he said in a recent newspaper interview.
Kurdish and central government officials set up a special commission this summer to try to defuse such tensions.
Gareth Stansfield, an expert at the University of Exeter, said the standoff is really about defining what Kurdish position will be, politically and geographically. "It can't be put off any longer. The pressure has become so intense that something has to give," he said.
Land, oil, power at stake
Brigadier General Tony Thomas, the top U.S. commander in Mosul, said Maliki increasingly "sees the Kurds, specifically the Peshmerga, as a militia, unauthorized, shouldn't be there." What many forget, he says, is that Peshmerga were invited to help keep the peace in some of Iraq's most troublesome areas. Thomas said Kurds are more nervous about what they see as Baghdad's growing unilateralizm as U.S. troops prepare to leave.
Behind the quarrels is oil. Many of the disputed areas along the "green line" have promising reserves, especially Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city that accounts for a quarter of Iraq's oil exports. Kurds consider Kirkuk their historic capital. Iraq's constitution provides for a referendum on control of the city. That vote has been postponed indefinitely, but Kurds think they would win it.
Arab-Kurdish disputes have so far held up legislation on how to share oil The impasse affects not just Iraq's oil sector, but all investment, casting a shadow on the U.S. project in Iraq.