Kurdish Frustration With Maliki Grows

   

Rifts over oil, Kirkuk and Peshmerga threaten alliance between Kurdish authorities and central government.

By Wrya Hama-Tahir in Sulaimaniyah (ICR No. 244, 25-Jan-08)

Tensions are building between Kurdish leaders and Arab prime minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government in Bagahdad, threatening to divide two of Iraq’s strongest political allies.

Kurdish leaders accuse Maliki’s government of not acting on issues most important to the Kurds, such as resolving a dispute over ownership of Kirkuk province and the funding of Kurdish forces known as the Peshmerga.

At the same time, the Iraqi Kurdish government has forged ahead with signing private oil contracts without the approval of the central government, irking Baghdad and reigniting debates about how much power Iraq’s regional governments should hold.

The Kurdish Alliance, the second-largest political bloc in the country, holds 53 of Baghdad parliament’s 275 seats and are members of Maliki’s Shia-led government. The recent tensions have damaged one of the strongest alliances in Iraq’s severely fractured political landscape.

The political disputes have simmered since last summer, escalating over the past few weeks. While Kurdish leaders insist they won’t pull out of Maliki’s government, they are growing increasingly vocal with their demands.

“I wouldn’t call it a crisis, but there are ups and downs and mistrust between the two sides,” said Qassim Dawd, an Iraqi parliament MP from the Maliki’s United Iraqi Alliance list.

Kurdish leaders “have been negligent and made a lot of mistakes”, said Mahmood Osman, an independent Kurdish member of the Baghdad assembly and one of the most vocal Kurdish critics of Maliki’s government.

“Federalism is new to Iraq, so undoubtedly problems like these would arise,” said Osman.

“[The Kurds] took for granted that Baghdad would follow through on its promises,” he said. “One should not depend on promises, but actions.”

Iraqi Kurdistan’s decision to sign independently about 15 oil contracts with international firms is one of the most contentious issues. The region approved an oil law last year that paved the way for the agreements. The politically paralysed central government has yet to vote on a national oil law.

The Iraqi constitution states that central government controls oil revenues, however it does not stipulate who should manage issues like oil contracts and production.

The Kurdistan Regional Government’s natural resources minister Ashti Hawrami is in Baghdad this week to try to resolve the oil contracts dispute with the oil ministry, according to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s news service. Nechirvan Barzani, the KRG’s prime minister, was not able to resolve any of the issues during a visit to Baghdad earlier this month.

Iraqi oil minister Hussein al-Shahristani deems the KRG’s contracts illegal and has threatened to bar oil firms working for the Iraqi Kurdistan authorities from doing business with Baghdad.

Dawd blamed the Iraqi government for dragging its feet on regulating oil. He said that “our Kurdish brothers” started signing contracts months after the KRG requested that the central government ratify the agreements.

Dawd is more sympathetic than many politicians. Last week, in a challenge to the Kurds, 145 MPs from a dozen political lists - including Sunni and Shia Arabs, Turkoman and Yezidis - signed a declaration supporting the central government’s control over all of Iraq’s natural resources.

The MPs also said that Iraq’s political factions should resolve the future status of Kirkuk without a referendum. Although Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution called for a plebiscite to be held on Kirkuk by the end of 2007, the vote has been postponed in part because of rising violence in the province.

The delays over Kirkuk, an oil-rich city which is home to Kurds, Turkoman and Arabs, has frustrated Kurdish leaders who want it to be administered by the KRG.

Kurdish leaders are under heavy public pressure to bring Kirkuk under KRG control, as many Kurds believe that Kirkuk is a historically Kurdish area. The late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein carried out several ethnic cleansing operations in Kirkuk to change the demography of the province. Thousands of Kurds and Turkoman were displaced from the city and Arabs replaced them.

Meanwhile, the KRG is waiting for Maliki to approve funds for 80,000 Peshmarga fighters, and there is an ongoing debate over how much revenue Iraqi Kurdistan should receive from central government: The Kurds maintained that they are 17 per cent of the population and, as such, are entitled to 17 per cent of oil revenues, while non-Kurds have argued that Kurds are only 13 per cent of the population. Iraq has not had an accurate census in decades.

Early last month, Kurdish leaders sent a “very strong” memorandum to Maliki demanding that the government quickly clarify its position on Kurdish-related issues, said Mohammad Mala Qadir, a politburo member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Mala Qadir said Maliki had not responded.

“We’ll keep negotiating with [the Iraqi government],” he said. “That way, they can’t ignore us.”

Wrya Hama-Tahir is an IWPR correspondent in Sulaimaniyah. Zainab Naji contributed to this story from Baghdad.