Oil for soil: toward a grand bargain on Iraq and the Kurds

Shiite Politics in Iraq: The Role of the Supreme Council, 15 November 2007, pp. 17-18. Iraqis are deeply divided over the extent to which Iraq should be decentralised, if at all. Crisis Group Report, Iraq After the Surge II, op. cit., pp. 11-14.

175 An Arab politician said, “Although my village is nearer to Tikrit [the capital of Salah al-Din governorate], I belong to Kirkuk. It has nothing to do with oil. We never had any benefit from oil under Saddam Hussein. We have co-existed for a long time in Kirkuk. Our economic links are with Kirkuk”. Crisis Group interview, Sa’doun Fandy, head of the Arab Consultative Council, Kirkuk, 22 June 2008. A Chaldo-Assyrian politician agreed: “Hawija is historically, geographically and administratively part of Kirkuk. In 1957 [the monarchy’s dying days], Tikrit was a qadha [district] in Baghdad governorate, and Hawija was a qadha in Kirkuk”. Crisis Group interview, Kirkuk, 22 June 2008. Even a Kurdish intellectual originally from Kirkuk asserted: “In Ottoman times, Hawija was part of Shahrazour [a predominantly Kurdish region that Kurdish nationalists use as the historical basis for their claim to independence]. At the beginning of the twentieth century, [Kurdish leader] Sheikh Mahmoud was recognised as the local authority, who was in conflict with the nascent Iraqi state. In the 1920s the Obeidi tribe came to Hawija and asked Sheikh Mahmoud for permission to settle there, and this was agreed by consensus. The Jubour tribe came later, and neither were they rejected. They settled on agricultural land that no Kurd wanted. Sheikh Mahmoud had asked Kurds to settle there but there were no takers. I don’t know why: It is a very rich area. After the tribes settled, the government set up an irrigation project to help increase agricultural production. Arabs started coming to the city [Kirkuk] to sell their produce. Over time they settled there and began to intermarry with Turkomans and Kurds, and they were well-respected because all of this was based on consensus. What changed the situation was [regime-driven] Arabisation in the 1970s”. Crisis Group interview, Suleimaniya, 26 June 2008.

176 The PUK’s Neywshirwan Mustafa Amin, among others, has suggested Hawija become the capital of a new (Arab) governorate. Crisis Group interview, Suleimaniya, 23 June 2008. Others, such as Nouri Talabany, an independent member of the Kurdistan national assembly, have proposed it become part of neighbouring Salah al-Din governorate. Crisis Group interview, Erbil, 17 June 2008.

177 While governorates hold extensive powers under the February 2008 law on governorates not organised into a region compared to the pre-2003 period (for example, to elect and remove governors, prepare the governorate budget and manage oil and gas wealth), governorates that choose to become a stand-alone region or join other governorates to form a multi-governorate region hold even greater powers under the 2005 constitution, including to adopt a constitution and establish internal security forces.

178 An Arab leader in Kirkuk said, “Kirkuk should be a stand-alone governorate linked to Baghdad. We don’t want Kirkuk to be a federal region, because we are afraid the Kurds would then seek to isolate and sever Hawija from Kirkuk. This is why we want to keep the link with the centre. It is the only objection we have to Kirkuk’s status as a stand-alone region. If we had guarantees Hawija would stay with Kirkuk, we would no longer object, but the better guarantee is to keep the Baghdad link, as in Baghdad [the council of representatives] we can protect our interests”. Crisis Group interview, Sa’doun Fandy, Kirkuk, 22 June 2008.

179 PJAK is the Party of Free Life for Kurdistan (Partîya Jîyana Azadîya Kurdistanê), which has bases in the Qandil moun­tain range in the Kurdistan region, from which its fighters have launched raids into Iran.

180 Fully and successfully settling the PKK question in Kurdistan likely depends on an overall political solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey. In its absence, the KRG could limit the PKK’s freedom of action, as proposed in Crisis Group Middle East Report N°64, Iraq and the Kurds: Resolving the Kirkuk Crisis, 19 April 2007, pp. 16-19. A KRG official, who referred to the first meeting between Turkish officials and KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani in Baghdad on 1 May 2008 as a “breakthrough”, said, “We understand the PKK is a problem. But there is no military solution. We want good relations with Turkey based on mutual respect. We don’t allow Kurdish territory to be used by anyone against any neighbour. But the KRG will take no further steps against the PKK. Turkey faced a lot of difficulties in the latest operations [in February 2008]. If Turkey were to adopt a political solution toward the PKK, we would help with that”. Crisis Group interview, Falah Mustafa Bakir, chief of the KRG foreign relations department, Erbil, 29 June 2008.

181 See Iraq’s Crime of Genocide, op. cit., and Joost R. Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja (Cambridge, 2007).

182 If Kirkuk were to become a stand-alone entity, its territory would cover the bulk of the geological structure of the Kirkuk oil field, as well as the Bai Hassan and Jambour fields.

183 Crisis Group interview, Rakan Saeed, deputy governor, Kirkuk, 19 June 2008. Saeed, an Arab, pointed out that Kirkuk has accommodated various groups over time: “Kirkuk is originally a Turkoman city; the plurality of its inhabitants were Turkomans, living inside the city. When oil was found, members of all communities were attracted. You can see from the city’s composition how urban migration took place: Arabs in the southern and western parts, Kurds in the north and east”.

184 See Crisis Group Report, Iraq and the Kurds, op. cit., pp. i-ii, 17-19. Even as a stand-alone governorate, Kirkuk would have greater powers than as part of the highly centralised Kur­distan region – a point not lost on Kurdish officials in Kirkuk. Natali, “The Kirkuk Conundrum”, op. cit. Its economic strength would be further enhanced if formerly Kirkuk districts such as Chamchamal and Kalar, in Suleimaniya governorate, were to be restored. Both have enormous potential oil and gas resources. For this reason, KRG leaders may have to think twice about their earlier proposal that former Kirkuk districts be reattached, as the 2004 TAL and 2005 constitutions prescribe. Crisis Group interviews, Erbil, 16-17 June 2008, and Kirkuk, 18-19 June 2008.

185 See Crisis Group Middle East Report N°56, Iraq and the Kurds: The Brewing Battle Over Kirkuk, 18 July 2006.

186 Crisis Group interviews, Amin Shwan, Kurdish intellectual, Kirkuk, 18 June 2008, Nouri Talabany, independent member of Kurdistan national assembly originally from Kirkuk, Erbil, 17 June 2008. An alternative would involve placing the Kirkuk oil field in a virtual quarantine or neutral zone, in which all stakeholders would have joint rights under a federal hydrocarbons law, with the federal government holding ultimate sovereign rights. The administrative status of Kirkuk governorate and city would become less emotionally charged and could be settled more easily. Crisis Group interview, international energy expert, Istanbul, 5 July 2008. It is an interesting, insufficiently explored idea worthy of discussion by stakeholders in grand bargain negotiations.

187 Crisis Group interviews, political leaders of all four communities, Kirkuk, 18-19, 22 June 2008.

188 In an accord brokered by the local U.S. provincial reconstruction team and signed on 2 December 2007, Kirkuk’s Arab and Kurdish leaders agreed to a series of items, including creation of a 21-member city council, with seats allocated by the 32-32-32-4 formula. The Turkomans were not party to the agreement but in September 2008 agreed to the council and appointed one of their own as council chairman (an Arab was his deputy). Arabs, Kurds and Turkomans took six seats each, Christians three.

189 Under the 2008 provincial powers law, each provincial council should have 25 seats plus one for every 200,000 inhabitants. Kirkuk governorate is believed to have 1 million to 1.2 million inhabitants, or five-six extra seats for a total of 30 or 31. A possible distribution could therefore be seven Arabs, seven Turkomans, fourteen Kurds, three Christians (22.5-22.5-45-10 per cent).

190 This is the formula used, in more or less those percentages, in 2003-2005, before the first elections. In 2003, the CPA established a 30-seat provincial council in Kirkuk with eleven Kurds, seven Christians, six Arabs and six Turkomans. Crisis Group noted in a previous report that the Christian Chaldo-Assyrians played a pivotal role in reducing tensions. Considered non-threatening by the larger communities, they mostly remained on the sidelines, keeping a low profile and mediating when asked. “When the groups in Kirkuk cannot agree on something, they agree that a Christian should represent them”, said a Western observer. Crisis Group interview, Kirkuk, 3 November 2004. The seven Christians voted with whatever community threatened to be a minority on a given issue, thus preventing controversial – but also important – decisions from being taken. When Arabs and Turkomans united in the council, for example, the Chaldo-Assyrians tended to side with the Kurds. “We don’t want to change the status quo”, said an Assyrian politician. “We will seek to maintain it at all cost. Kirkuk is a bomb about to go off, and we don’t want to be the trigger – or the victims”. Crisis Group interview, Srood Mattei, Erbil, 2 November 2004. Crisis Group Middle East Report N°35, Iraq: Allaying Turkish Fears Over Kurdish Ambitions, 26 January 2005, pp. 4-6. While not a recipe for effective governance, sharing power may help restore trust between communities and the parties claiming to represent them.

191 Crisis Group has argued for an asymmetric federalism that would preserve Iraq while meeting basic Kurdish aspirations and offering necessary minimum protections to all communities. Arab Iraq would be divided into fifteen decentralised gov­ernorates, relying on present boundaries, which would enjoy significant powers and fair access to oil revenues. This approach has significant merit: as a form of federalism, it is accepted by all main players; it allows a workable and fair formula for sharing oil revenues, a principle all advance; it confirms the Kurdistan region, another consensus point; it circumscribes the state’s powers, addressing fears of excessive central rule; and by dividing Arab Iraq into geographically-defined entities, it is non-ethnic and non-sectarian and would prevent one community’s domination. Most importantly, it could hold the country together without posing an existential threat to any single community. A variation would be to limit the size of regions to three governorates and delay the process of region formation for ten years. See Crisis Group Middle East Report N°60, After Baker-Hamilton: What to Do in Iraq, 19 December 2006, pp. 15-18.

192 Crisis Group has recommended that the KRG state publicly it will not tolerate the PKK in the Kurdistan region unless it agrees to abandon its armed struggle and disarms, and in the meantime: (a) continue to contain and isolate it and deny it freedom of movement within the region; (b) halt all supplies to it; (c) shut down its media operations and prevent journalists from visiting it in the Qandil mountain range; and (d) in response to a Turkish amnesty for lower- and mid-level cadres, allow senior leaders, once disarmed, to integrate into the Kurdistan region and similarly agree to absorb any refugees from the Makhmour camp who refuse to return to Tur­key. Crisis Group Report, Iraq and the Kurds, op. cit., p. ii.

193 Crisis Group interview, Osman Haji Mahmoud, KRG minister of state for the interior for the KDP, Suleimaniya, 26 June 2008.