Riyadh was the venue for Talabani’s proposal earlier this week when he met with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who reiterated Turkey’s unease over developments in Kirkuk. Talabani answered him: “Is there a mistake that the Iraqis have made in regards to Kirkuk? Send a delegation; let them carry out investigations in Kirkuk. Let them look into whether the records of deeds have been erased. Let them carry out demographic studies. The base for these deeds is in Baghdad. Let Turkey’s consulate in Mosul look into this.” Ankara is worried that Iraqi Kurds are trying to take control of Kirkuk as part of their push for an independent state on Turkey’s border and has repeatedly urged power-sharing among ethnic groups in the oil-rich city. Kirkuk lies just south of the Kurdish autonomous region stretching across Iraq’s northeast. Kurdish leaders want to annex the city. Iraq’s constitution calls for a census and referendum on the issue by the end of this year.
As of Friday, Foreign Ministry officials said that there was currently no concrete plans for sending such a delegation to Kirkuk. “It is a fact that Talabani’s proposal is in itself a positive step reflecting the Iraqi Kurds’ willingness for having a better, milder and -- most importantly -- appropriate relationship with Turkey,” a senior diplomat told Today’s Zaman, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Kirkuk is an ancient city that was once part of the Ottoman Empire, with a large minority of ethnic Turkmens as well as Shiite and Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. Since the US-led invasion in 2003, Kurdish forces in northern Iraq have rallied to reverse what they claim to be the Arabization policy of Saddam Hussein, which purged Kirkuk and other oil-rich Kurdish areas and replaced Kurds with Arab settlers.
Thousands of Kurdish settlers from northern Iraq have flooded back into Kirkuk, colonizing the city’s desert outskirts. Many believe the influx is a bid to change the city’s ethnic balance ahead of a 2007 census and referendum to decide whether Kirkuk will be annexed to Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
When reminded of possible interpretations of Talabani’s proposal, such as the Iraqi Kurds using a delegation sent by Turkey to the city for legitimizing their inappropriate activities, the same diplomat sounded confident and firm as on their position: “Ankara has no such worries because Turkey’s stance regarding Kirkuk is very well known by the Iraqi Kurds as well as by the international community.”
Meanwhile, it is still a subject of debate whether there had been any understanding over such proposal of inviting a Turkish delegation to Kirkuk between Talabani and Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani, president of the de facto autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, prior to Talabani’s meeting with Erdoğan in Riyadh.
However Ankara-based analysts underline that Barzani has recently become aware that the situation in Kirkuk is becoming a center of focus in the international community more and more. Barzani has also become aware that the situation in Kirkuk has had a negative impact on the image of Iraqi Kurds in eyes of the international community, convincing him to give consent to this proposal, one analyst said.
The prime minister already greeted Talabani’s suggestion with pleasure, saying a delegation would be sent, confirming that Ankara will be “analyzing this and making a decision very soon.”
Erdoğan, who confirmed that his meeting with Talabani had gone well, was quoted as telling Turkish journalists on his way back from Riyadh: “Talabani told me ‘We need Turkey. We cannot deny everything you have done for us. We have made some mistakes, but then, so have you.’ They are particularly uncomfortable with the polemic that appears in the media. I reminded him that I had called him, as the prime minister of Turkey, while he was in the hospital.”
Dialogue with Iraqi leaders has become a matter of political controversy in Turkey after Chief of General Staff Gen. Yaşar Büyükanıt, during a recent visit to the US capital, said he would not meet Iraqi Kurdish leaders because they supported the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The issue turned divisive when the government expressed intent to have talks with the same leaders to discuss security issues with Iraq. But tension cooled off after a meeting of the influential National Security Council (MGK), which groups the president, top military commanders and the government leaders, late last month. A statement released after the meeting expressed backing for “intensified diplomatic efforts,” something that has been widely interpreted as a green light for talks with the Iraqi Kurds.
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