Maliki makes his move on Kirkuk issue


By Sami Moubayed
Asia Times
Dec 22, 2009


DAMASCUS - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will soon visit the northern district of Kurdistan, aiming to sign a deal with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani regarding the future of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish militia.

According to the deal, the Baghdad government will recognize and thereby legitimize the Kurdish militia and, in turn, the Kurdish government will release money collected from taxes and tariffs that it has so far withheld from the central government. This also means that salaries and pensions of the 90,000-man Peshmerga, previously paid for by the Kurdistan government, will become the responsibility of the Maliki government.

Is the Maliki visit purely domestic, aimed at diverting attention from the recent bombings in Baghdad and creating allies for the prime minister ahead of the March 2010 elections? Or is it a result of a recent US declaration supporting implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which calls for a referendum in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, to see whether its inhabitants want to remain part of Iraq or join the district of Iraqi Kurdistan? Kurdistan already has 10-15% of Iraq’s oil reserves, while Kirkuk alone holds as much as 25%, meaning that if the Kurds get to incorporate it, they will control no less than 40% of oil reserves in Iraq.

That referendum should have been held two years ago, but has been continually delayed by the central government, which fears Iraq's Arab Shi'ites and Sunnis would never tolerate it, and nor would regional players Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Maliki cuddled up to the Kurds in 2007, after losing some of his principal Sunni and Shi'ite allies, promising to uphold Article 140, to remain on the good side of Iraqi Kurds. He also indirectly sponsored the transfer of Arabs from within Kirkuk (there are 12,000 Arab families in the city) to other parts of Iraq ahead of the proposed referendum, claiming that they had been brought there illegally by Saddam Hussein to outnumber Kurds in the city.

These gestures by Maliki helped keep his cabinet coalition alive at a time when heavyweights such as the Sadrists, the Iraqi National List and the Iraqi Accordance Front were no longer dealing with him. Matters became strained, however, when Maliki failed to put his words into action, repeatedly delaying the referendum, and did not lift a finger to prevent Turkish attacks on Kurdistan in mid-2007, aimed at eliminating the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The prime minister is apparently recalculating his relationship with the Kurds. He needs heavyweights behind him, after all, since success in the upcoming elections seems all the more difficult after the latest bombings in August, October and December. He also realizes that the US administration of President Barack Obama is keen on resolving the Kurdish issue, after it sent a senior diplomat, Alan Misenheimer, to reside in Kirkuk in August. Shortly before that, the Kurds were on the verge of holding a referendum on a regional constitution, unilaterally declaring their control over Kirkuk, and claiming that the Baghdad government had repeatedly delayed holding the much-anticipated yet controversial referendum.

Kirkuk came to the world's attention during the era of Iraq's founder, King Faysal I, when an oil gusher was discovered in 1927. The oilfield was put into operation by the Iraqi Petroleum Co in 1934 and has been producing oil ever since, currently up to a million barrels per day (half of all Iraqi oil exports). By 1998, Kirkuk still had reserves of 10 billion barrels. At the time of the downfall of Saddam's regime, the city (250 kilometers north of Baghdad) had a population of 755,700. In 1973, Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa al-Barzani laid formal claim to Kirkuk, something that the regime of General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr considered a declaration of war.

Because of numerous attacks on Iraqi oilfields in 2003-04, as well as on the country's 7,000km pipeline system, the US set up Task Force Shield to guard the oil infrastructure, particularly in the Kirkuk district. In January 2004, the Los Angeles Times quoted Kurdish politician Barham Salih as saying, "We have a claim to Kirkuk rooted in history, geography and demographics." If this claim were not acknowledged, he added, it would be a "recipe for civil war".

If this issue is not resolved one way or another, the Americans reason, it could spell civil war. The problem today is how sustainable any deal would be between Maliki and the Kurds, given the complete breakdown in trust between them due to an accumulation of events since 2007. Maliki does not have much room to maneuver, with the Iranians and other regional players, who would never accept Kirkuk becoming Kurdish, breathing down his neck. Although the prime minister was brought to power by the Americans in 2006, his connections to the US are not nearly as strong as those of the Kurds, particularly the Barzani clan. Both sides, however, are waiting to see where Obama will stand on the issue of Kirkuk.

His vice-president, Joe Biden, is an outspoken supporter of Kurdish claims to Kirkuk, having visited the city during the transition period in late 2008, reportedly carrying a letter from then-president-elect Obama to the Kirkuk Provincial Council. According to the Iraqi daily Al-Zaman, the letter expressed Obama's "special interest in that province". London-based al-Hayat said Biden stressed a consensual resolution to the Kirkuk issue, which he has been pushing for since assuming office with Obama last January. If this does happen, and civil war does erupt, it could bring an abrupt halt to the planned US troop withdrawal from Iraq, to take place by 2012.

Some are calling for a partitioning of the city between Kurds and Arabs, citing the Indian city of Chandigarh, which is the capital of both Punjab and Haryana states. But that proposal would also be rejected by Iraqi Arabs, along with the Turks, the Saudis, the Iranians and the Syrians. If the Americans do apply hard pressure on Maliki, will he listen? Obama is not George W Bush, after all, and Maliki's fate is not 100% dependent on the Obama White House, as it was under Bush.

That is why the prime minister is trying to hammer out a deal directly with the Kurds themselves - hoping to delay the issue of Kirkuk until after he is re-elected in March.

Sami Moubayed is editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine in Syria.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KL22Ak03.html