Temporary Solution For Kirkuk In Iraqi Election Law
BY FERAI TINC
HURRIYET - It's unclear if certain longstanding disagreements are over or not, but they have been suspended under US and Iran pressure. Otherwise the Iraqi Parliament wouldn't have passed a new election law following long debate. Elections will be held in Iraq next January. My colleagues in Baghdad told striking stories of the rising US pressure over this. One says that a top US diplomat loudly warned the 275 Iraqi deputies to vote as soon as possible. The controversial election law was passed with 141 votes, versus 134 abstentions or no votes, including most Turkmen and Arab deputies.
The yes votes came from Kurdish parties and members of the Shiite Islamic Higher Council and Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party. Certain observers in Iraq argue that not only the US, but Iran also had an impact on the results, and cited Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani's visit to Baghdad on the day of the vote as evidence. The impact of the role played by Iran and the US in this decision is worth discussing.
One of the most important reasons for Kurdish support for the US in the war in Iraq was to get Kirkuk included in the Kurdish administration's region. The Kurdish administration has always said they won't retreat on Kirkuk, while the Turkmen and Arabs reiterated that Kirkuk has never been and will never be Kurdish. Kirkuk was one of the sticking points in the election law. The Kurds wanted voter rolls in the region drawn up in line with this year's census, whereas the Turkmen and Arabs rejected this. A settlement was reached in the new election law, though with great difficulty. The law says the rolls are in line with the 2009 census, but declares them 'of doubtful quality.' A panel will investigate the lists for a year to weed out inproper entries. Due to this one-year process, a referendum to determine if Kirkuk will be attached to the regional Kurdish administration will be postponed. If Iraq's Parliament approves, the referendum will be held in 2011 at the earliest. Under the postponement, Kirkuk will continue to be a spark which could ignite at any time.
The Iraqi elections are vitally important for the Obama administration. Its plans to send more troops to Afghanistan depend on its withdrawing 70,000 soldiers from Iraq by next fall. Of course this won't mean that the US has left Iraq, but it will lighten its burden and to do this it has to give the image of success in Iraq. Turkey's support is a must, and this support is being given for now. The Kirkuk issue isn't as important for Turkish foreign policy as it used to be. Ankara was among the first to congratulate Iraq on its new election law. Is this bad? No. The Kurdish issue and talking about good relations with the Iraqi Kurdish administration… These are all good developments, provided that we don't leave the events up to the pressures and directions of foreign dynamics, but draw our own road map.
