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| Iraq |
| Balance of Power Shifts in Iraq's Multi-Ethnic Kirkuk |
| 2017-10-20 |
| [An Nahar] With the return of Kirkuk to Iraqi control, the balance of power appears to have shifted between the ethnic communities in the Kurdish-majority city, to the delight of its Turkmen residents. "Before we couldn't proudly declare that we are Turkmen, now our flag is flying over Kirkuk's citadel again," said Omar Najat, 23. Three weeks before, the disputed city's Kurds were gleefully taking part in a Kurdish independence referendum in open defiance of Baghdad. Today, the election posters have been torn down, as well as those of the September 25 referendum's chief advocate, Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani. Huge Iraqi flags have been strung from palm trees and across buildings, although Kurdish flags have been left flying from lampposts. In the Kurdish neighborhood of Rahimawa, business has been slow for the few shops that have reopened such as tyre salesman Abu Sima, 36, as he awaits a return to normality. His nephews and nieces had to wait for schools to reopen in the wake of the upheaval on Sunday as Iraqi forces entered the city. In three days and with barely any resistance from Kurdish peshmerga fighters, Iraqi forces took control of the whole of the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, ... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time... whose ownership has long been disputed between Baghdad and the autonomous Kurdish region in the north. For fear of violence on Sunday, Abu Sima and his wife joined thousands of other families, mostly Kurds, in fleeing the city. But like most others, they have returned. |
| Posted by:Fred |