VZCZCXRO5121
RR RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHMOS
DE RUEHKUK #0071/01 0880437
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 290437Z MAR 06
FM REO KIRKUK
TO RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 0543
RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0579
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHKUK/REO KIRKUK 0607

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KIRKUK 000071 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BAGHDAD FOR POL, NCT 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  3/29/2016 
TAGS: PINR PGOV KDEM IZ
SUBJECT: TURCOMAN - UNIFIED IN KIRKUK, DIVIDED IN BAGHDAD -REMAIN 
FRUSTRATED BY LAND DISTRIBUTION POLICIES 
 
KIRKUK 00000071  001.2 OF 002 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Michael Oreste, PRT Team Leader, REO Kirkuk, 
Department of State. 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary.  The Islamic Turcoman Union represents most 
Shia Turcoman in Kirkuk.  The party works with other Turcoman 
parties on issues locally but is aligned with the Unified Iraqi 
Alliance in Baghdad. The Shia Turcoman remain frustrated with 
the perceived bias and indecision in the land distribution 
process in Kirkuk.   End Summary. 
 
 
ISLAMIC TURCOMAN UNION (ITU) 
---------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  IPAOs met with Shia Turcoman and Kirkuk provincial 
council member Tasin Kahiya.  Kahiya is a member of the Islamic 
Turcoman Union, which holds four seats in the Council of 
Representatives.  Kahiya said the ITU has two goals: first, 
remove the injustices of the Iraqi Turcoman; and second, remove 
the injustices of all Iraqi Shia.  His party is aligned with the 
Unified Iraqi Alliance (UIA) in Baghdad but works closely with 
all Turcoman in Kirkuk. 
 
 
TURCOMAN PARTIES DIVIDED ON POLITICAL STRATEGY 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
¶3.  (C)  When asked how the ITU differed from the Iraqi Turcoman 
Front (ITF), Kahiya said the ITU, unlike the ITF, had strategic 
goals for Iraq.  The ITF was merely "a reactionary group" that 
focused excessively on current events to formulate its policy. 
He argued that the ITF had limited the Turcoman voice at the 
national level because of its decision to run independently in 
the December 2005 national elections.  As a result, the ITF 
acquired only one seat, while the ITU gained four seats by 
uniting with the UIA.  Kahiya predicted that if the ITF did not 
reform, the party was likely to continue to lose influence. 
 
UNFAIR LAND DISTRIBUTION POLICIES 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (C)  Kahiya complained that many Kurds continue to move to 
Kirkuk and grab land illegally.  He confessed that the Kurds had 
the legal right to move into Kirkuk, as long as they did not 
trespass or squat on others' land.  He qualified his stance, 
however, adding that due to political sensitivities it was 
immoral for non-resident Kurds to populate Kirkuk in the run-up 
to the 2007 referendum. 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  In describing the Iraqi Property Claims Commission 
(IPCC), Kahiya said it was a lazy organization that was unable 
to resolve many of the claims given to it.  A major problem, 
according to Kahiya, was that the legislation was poorly 
written.  For example, the former regime took much of the land 
for "public use," and the current law does not recognize these 
claims.  Kahiya said the Turcoman have met with the Council of 
Ministers in an effort to prevent the IPCC in Baghdad from 
reviewing additional cases until these deficiencies were 
accounted for and resolved. 
 
LEADERSHIP NOTES 
---------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  Kahiya is a politburo member of the ITU.  He served 
as the Kirkuk provincial council chairman for two years before 
Iraq's first provincial elections in January 2005.  Kahiya is 
from the Tisin neighborhood in Kirkuk.  He graduated from a 
technical institute and later gained an advanced degree in 
religious studies.  Kahiya is in his third year of law school at 
Kirkuk University.  Kahiya fled Iraq in 1981 when the Ba'ath 
Party pursued him on execution orders.  He remained active in 
the Iraqi Opposition community from 1981 to 2003.  Kahiya in 
1991 helped form the ITU, which is a break off from the Da'wa 
Party. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  Abbas Bayati, who was elected to both the 
Transitional National Assembly and Council of Representatives, 
leads the ITU.  He served on the TNA's foreign relations 
committee, traveling often in that position.  Bayati graduated 
from a nursing institute and later gained a master's degree in 
religious studies.  Bayati is a prolific writer and hails from 
Diyala. 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  Jasim Muhammad Jafar, Iraqi Minister of Housing and 
Construction, serves as Bayati's deputy in the ITU.  He is from 
Tuz in the Salah ad Din province and earned a master's degree in 
 
KIRKUK 00000071  002.2 OF 002 
 
 
civil engineering.  The ITU is lobbying to keep Jafar in his 
ministerial position in Iraq's permanent government.  Bayati, 
Jafar, and Kahiya compose the top tier leadership of the ITU. 
ITU membership is primarily reserved for Shia Turcoman.  The 
party prefers to work with other sectarian or ethnic parties as 
counterparts rather than co-opting them into their party. 
 
COMMENT 
-------- 
 
¶9.  (C)  Kahiya displayed an antagonistic stance toward the ITF, 
which reflects the political and ideological divide that exists 
between Shia and Sunni Turcoman.  Kahiya substantiated our 
assumption that the Shia Turcoman are aligned with the Turcoman 
on Kirkuk issues and the Shia coalition at the national level. 
The ITU's ability to acquire four seats in the Council of 
Representatives, while the ITF - having a larger Turcoman 
constituency - gained only one seat, helped to validate the 
ITU's claim of superior strategy at maximizing the Turcoman 
voice at the national level. 
ORESTE