The Kurdish minority
The Security Council will gather to asses the situation in Kirkuk in northern Iraq, and to contemplate a solution to the escalating conflict between the Kurdish minority and the Turkish government.
The “Kurdish problem” has long compromised a dangerous cocktail in international politics, but is now an agenda that can not be overlooked by neither the United States, who are seeking to stabilize the situation in Iraq and promote Turkish membership of the EU, nor the European Union, who continuously have stressed the issue of human rights in connection with a future acceptance of Turkey as an EU member state.
In Turkey alone, the Kurdish minority comprises over 15 million of Turkey’s population of 70 million, potentially making up over three percent of the inhabitants of the EU. The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK, now blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, took up arms for self-rule in the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast.
Turkey has long urged the Iraqi Government and the United States to crack down on the PKK in northern Iraq, a Kurdish-run region where thousands militants found save haven after the group declared a unilateral ceasefire in 1999 following the capture of their leader Abdullah Ocalan.
The Turkish government charges that northern Iraq has become a training ground for the PKK and a springboard for its attacks across the border. It says that PKK rebels enjoy unrestricted movement in the region and are easily able to obtain weapons and explosives there.
Iraq has announced that it would close down all PKK offices in the country, but Ankara is also urging Baghdad to declare the PKK a terrorist organization and arrest its leaders.
The issue of Kirkuk
Kirkuk, Iraq's oil-rich northern city, is probably the most critical area for the future of Iraq, but the least covered by international media.
Historically, the city accommodates people from Iraq's three biggest ethnic groups: Turkmen, Arabs and Kurds. The groups have been engaged in a prolonged dispute over the city's identity, with each side claiming ownership of the 5000-year-old metropolis.
On the 6th of October the referendum for the parliament of Kirkuk took place. As the result came out, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan had gained 82% of the votes, and Lahrame Tjarin, the leader of the party, was elected mayor. As it turns out, the recent events in the city of Kirkuk constitutes a threat to international peace and security.
Being the centre of Iraq's northern oil industry, the Kurds see the Kirkuk region as vital for their long awaited "independent state of Kurdistan". Attacks on the infrastructure of the Kirkuk oil industry have been ongoing since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
The Kurds' grip on Kirkuk was strengthened after the invasion of Iraq, and the two main Kurdish political parties led by Massoud Barzani, President of the Autonomous Kurdish Government in Iraq and leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president, became the main powerbrokers in the city. Now their ambition to annex the city into the Kurdish region has become public and bold.
Prior to the referendum, Lahrame Tjarin had been among a group of Kurdish politicians who are the proponents of fostering a Kurdish state. In the new Mayors first speech to the people of Kirkuk, he underlined that in the future the city would be governed with respect for all ethnic groups. But he also concluded, that finally justice had been done and the Kurds had regained their rightful position in the city that would at all times hold the status as the heart of Kurdistan.
Promptly after the election of Lahrame Tjarin, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer of Turkey threw doubt on the legitimacy of the referendum, and officially announced that Turkey would not recognise Lahrame Tjarin’s position as Mayor of Kirkuk. Furthermore Turkey would “take the necessary precautions to prevent Kurdish nationalist tendencies, leading towards the creation of a Kurdish state because of the destabilizing consequences for the entire region.”
Arab Iraqi voices have also questioned the legitimacy of the referendum, and have unofficially indicated that the Kurds have been using their new political power and the support of the US to manipulate it. They draw attention to the fact that the actual election was not supposed to have taken place before 2007, and that it was rescheduled on false grounds.
Especially the Sunni minority within the Arab population is concerned with the Kurds explicit move towards federalism, and recently boycotted a parliamentary decision on the subject. Sunnis fear that this will split Iraq into sectarian mini-states, giving Shiite and Kurds control over oil riches in the south and north, and leaving Sunnis in an impoverished central zone without resources.
On the night between the 6th and 7th of October the situation had provoked Kirkuk's non-Kurdish communities and plunged the city into a fierce war. Reports from the area says that the city was about to burst into flames. At 02.55 Lahrame Tjarin, was assassinated in his home in Northern Kirkuk. No organization or Government has yet claimed responsibility for the assassination.
This assassination of an elected official and the general seriousness of the entire situation prompt immediate response from the international community.