Maliki makes his move on Kirkuk issue

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will soon visit the northern district of Kurdistan, aiming to sign a deal with Kurdish President Massoud Barzani regarding the future of the Peshmerga, the Kurdish militia.

According to the deal, the Baghdad government will recognize and thereby legitimize the Kurdish militia and, in turn, the Kurdish government will release money collected from taxes and tariffs that it has so far withheld from the central government. This also means that salaries and pensions of the 90,000-man Peshmerga, previously paid for by the Kurdistan government, will become the responsibility of the Maliki government.
Is the Maliki visit purely domestic, aimed at diverting attention

from the recent bombings in Baghdad and creating allies for the prime minister ahead of the March 2010 elections? Or is it a result of a recent US declaration supporting implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which calls for a referendum in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, to see whether its inhabitants want to remain part of Iraq or join the district of Iraqi Kurdistan? Kurdistan already has 10-15% of Iraq’s oil reserves, while Kirkuk alone holds as much as 25%, meaning that if the Kurds get to incorporate it, they will control no less than 40% of oil reserves in Iraq.

That referendum should have been held two years ago, but has been continually delayed by the central government, which fears Iraq’s Arab Shi’ites and Sunnis would never tolerate it, and nor would regional players Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Kirkuk came to the world’s attention during the era of Iraq’s founder, King Faysal I, when an oil gusher was discovered in 1927. The oilfield was put into operation by the Iraqi Petroleum Co in 1934 and has been producing oil ever since, currently up to a million barrels per day (half of all Iraqi oil exports). By 1998, Kirkuk still had reserves of 10 billion barrels. At the time of the downfall of Saddam’s regime, the city (250 kilometers north of Baghdad) had a population of 755,700. In 1973, Kurdish leader Mullah Mustafa al-Barzani laid formal claim to Kirkuk, something that the regime of General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr considered a declaration of war.

Because of numerous attacks on Iraqi oilfields in 2003-04, as well as on the country’s 7,000km pipeline system, the US set up Task Force Shield to guard the oil infrastructure, particularly in the Kirkuk district. In January 2004, the Los Angeles Times quoted Kurdish politician Barham Salih as saying, “We have a claim to Kirkuk rooted in history, geography and demographics.” If this claim were not acknowledged, he added, it would be a “recipe for civil war”.

If this issue is not resolved one way or another, the Americans reason, it could spell civil war. The problem today is how sustainable any deal would be between Maliki and the Kurds, given the complete breakdown in trust between them due to an accumulation of events since 2007. Maliki does not have much room to maneuver, with the Iranians and other regional players, who would never accept Kirkuk becoming Kurdish, breathing down his neck.

Asia Times