Oil wealth fans ethnic flames in Iraqi town

KHANAQIN, Iraq: In a mirror image of Kirkuk, the Kurdish town of Khanaqin near the border with Iran that holds sizeable oil reserves is being exposed to ethnic tensions and rival territorial claims.

The local Kurdish political leadership warns that the area could see an ethnic explosion, as they call for Khanaqin to join the adjoining autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of northern Iraq.



They want to rebuild the town through the international oil boom. “What we are telling the government is simple. Implement the constitutional provision for a referendum for people in Khanaqin to decide their future,” said Mala Bakhtyar, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Kurdish political party of Iraq’s President Jalal Talabani.

If they don’t do that, then there will be political trouble and military trouble. Yes, there will be an explosion of violence,” he told an AFP journalist touring the town in Diyala province.

Along the 170-kilometre (110-mile) road from Baghdad to Khanaqin are grim reminders of trouble.

Kuwait Times