Turkmen join Arabs to stop vote on Iraq oil province

Arab and Turkmen politicians in Iraq’s northern Kirkuk province have banded together to try to block an impending referendum on the future status of the disputed oil-rich region.

Kurds, reckoned to form the majority of the province’s 900,000 population, are eager to press on with the vote in the hope of removing direct control of the area from Baghdad and including it in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region.
Political stalemate meant that Kirkuk took part neither in Iraqi provincial elections earlier this year nor Kurdish ones last month, but leaders of the province’s minority Arab and Turkmen communities believe they may have found a way of breaking the deadlock.

They are seeking a national vote on a proposal to scrap the already-delayed Kirkuk referendum.

The Arab and Turkmen leaders have pledged to back proposed amendments that would remove Article 140 of Iraq’s 2005 constitution, which required a referendum over the status of Kirkuk and a census to take place by the end of 2007.

Neither has taken place and the minorities say their validity has timed out.

AFP