Minorities in Iraq’s North Seen as Threatened
The policies and tactics of Kurdish authorities could expose minority groups in northern Iraq to “another full-blown human rights catastrophe” unless the minorities receive better protection, according to a report released Tuesday by Human Rights Watch.
Members of the minority groups are being singled out by extremist insurgent groups and also are caught in the middle of a struggle for land and resources between Arabs and the central government on one hand and leaders of Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region on the other, said the report, which was released in the Kurdish region’s capital, Erbil, and focused on Christians, Shabaks and Yazidis in Nineveh Province.
Rights report criticizes Iraqi Kurds for mistreating minorities
Minorities in northern Iraq are at great risk of violence, abuse and manipulation thanks to the ongoing power struggle between Arbil and Baghdad, warns a human rights group. A Turkmen living in Turkey says the issue is often misconstrued in the media
The ongoing dispute between Iraq’s central government and the Regional Kurdish Administration in northern Iraq is once again threatening to become a “human rights catastrophe” for minority communities, according to a report by a leading rights watchdog.
Meanwhile, experts on the region said it was nothing new that minorities in the region were being squeezed between the two power centers. Read the rest of this entry »
Turkey enters northern Iraq
Wait, wait! Don’t panic after looking at the headline. True, Turkey has entered northern Iraq, but unlike its past entries, it did it this time with diplomacy, peace and brotherhood.
Two years after a terrorist attack on the Dağlıca military outpost, which had brought the two countries to the brink of war, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu orchestrated a huge initiative of friendship and peace toward northern Iraq with his visit on Friday and Saturday. Being the lead figure of a Turkish foreign policy that has dispensed with its rigid habits and has undertaken a radical paradigm shift in parallel to the country’s painful process of evolution from a national security state to a democratic one, Davutoğlu visited Arbil, the most critical step of his unusual visit to Iraq. Read the rest of this entry »
Iraqi Turkmen groups agree on joint action
Representatives of more than 20 Iraqi Turkmen groups who gathered in Ankara last week released a joint declaration on Sunday announcing that they have decided to maintain a joint strategy in order to better protect the interests of Iraqi Turkmens in the upcoming parliamentary elections in Iraq, scheduled to take place in January.
Iraqi Turkmen representatives had gathered in the Turkish capital upon an invitation by Bilkent University Rector Ali Doğramacı, whose family’s origin is Iraqi Turkmen. President Abdullah Gül last week hosted the representatives at an iftar (fast-breaking dinner) at the presidential palace. Read the rest of this entry »
ITF to open new offices in Turkey
In an effort to guarantee an electoral victory in January, Iraqi Turkmen are working on a database of Turkmen populations worldwide to boost their numbers in parliament. The Iraqi Turkmen Front is planning to open offices in various Turkish cities in line with this campaign
In an effort to boost support for Turkmen deputies in Iraq’s Jan. 16 general elections, Iraqi Turkmen leaders have decided to join forces to find and mobilize Turkmen populations worldwide.
A summit to unite Iraqi Turkmen and discuss ways to boost their numbers in parliament took place last week in Ankara. Iraqi Turkmen Front, or ITF, Chairman Sadettin Ergeç, Iraqi Turkmen Assembly President Yunus Bayraktar, Iraqi Turkmen Islamic Union Secretary-General Abbas Betyati, Iraqi Turkmen Justice Party Chairman Enver Bayraktar and other Turkmen deputies serving in the Iraqi parliament, along with chairs of Turkmen associations in Turkey, constituted the summit’s 23 participants. Read the rest of this entry »
Turkmen join Arabs to stop referendum in Kirkuk
Arab and Turkmen politicians in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk province have banded together to try to block an impending referendum on the future status of the disputed oil-rich region.
Kurds, reckoned to form the majority of the province’s 900,000 population, are eager to press on with the vote in the hope of removing direct control of the area from Baghdad and including it in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
Political stalemate meant that Kirkuk took part neither in Iraqi provincial elections earlier this year nor Kurdish ones last month, but leaders of the province’s minority Arab and Turkmen communities believe they may have found a way of breaking the deadlock. Read the rest of this entry »
Turkey to treat 40 people injured in Mosul attack
Turkey will treat 40 people who were wounded in an attack in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the Directorate General for Emergency Management said on Saturday.
The directorate released a statement in which it said that 40 people who were injured in an attack in Mosul on Friday and their hospital attendants would be brought to Turkey for treatment. Read the rest of this entry »
Mahmur camp’s future unclear
The 12,000 Turkish citizens who live in the U.N.-supervised Mahmur camps in northern Iraq will only return back to Turkey if the Kurdish problem is resolved, one local official said.
The refugees crossed over to Iraq in 1994 from the southeastern provinces of Şırnak and Hakkari during the heaviest clashes between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and the military.
Turkey’s efforts to resolve the Kurdish issue had local repercussions, said one local official who wanted to remain anonymous, adding that the only viable way for the refugees to return to their homes was the resolution of the Kurdish problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Iraqi Kurd leader vows no ’compromise’ on oil city
The leader of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, Massud Barzani, said he would not “compromise” on long-standing Kurdish claims to the oil-rich province of Kirkuk in a speech late Sunday.
“We are committed to the application of Article 140 [of the Iraqi constitution] and we promise that we will absolutely not compromise on this issue or on the rights of the people of Kurdistan,” Barzani said at a campaign rally ahead of Kurdish regional elections on Saturday.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution calls for a referendum to decide the fate of Kirkuk, which the Kurds have long wanted to make the capital of their autonomous region in the north, an aim strongly opposed by the province’s Arab and Turkmen communities. Read the rest of this entry »
Martyr Week of Iraqi-Turkmen
Fiftieth Anniversary of the 1959 Kirkuk Massacre
14 July 2009, this day marks the 50th year anniversary of the largest massacre of Iraqi-Turkmen in Kirkuk, Iraq to date.
Every year on July 14th, this massacre and the Turkmen martyrs are remembered with respect and gratitude.
No other people in history have suffered massacres in almost every one of their cities. Likewise, there is no other nation in history which on a year by year count has seen such systematic massacres. No other nation has ever been exposed to this kind of genocide and forced assimilation. The only “crime” of the Turkmen people, remnants of the Ottoman Empire, living in a geography that is the extension of Turkey, is to be of Turkish origin. Read the rest of this entry »