VZCZCXRO8550
PP RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHIHL
DE RUEHKUK #0137/01 2141749
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P R 021749Z AUG 06
FM REO KIRKUK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0705
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD PRIORITY 0667
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHKUK/REO KIRKUK 0733

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIRKUK 000137 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
BAGHDAD FOR POL, POLMIL, NCT, IRMO 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL:  8/2/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PINS PNAT PREF PREL KDEM IZ TU
SUBJECT: (C) KIRKUK TURKOMAN DIVIDED ON ARTICLE 140, FUTURE STATUS OF 
KIRKUK 
 
REF: KIRKUK 00000123 
 
KIRKUK 00000137  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
CLASSIFIED BY: Jim Bigus, PRT Leader, POL, Department of State. 
 
REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 
¶1.      (C) INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY:  Turkoman political leaders 
from different blocs said on July 26 they do not agree on the 
issues of implementation of Article 140 and the future status of 
Kirkuk.  In separate meetings bloc leaders from the Iraqi 
Turkoman Front (ITF) and the Iraqi Turkoman National Gathering 
(ITNG) told IPAOs the key disagreement was whether Kirkuk should 
be an autonomous federated region or should join the Kurdistan 
Regional Government (KRG).  END INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY. 
 
(C) ITF - REFERENDUM ON KIRKUK MUST BE NATION-WIDE 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶2.      (C) Leaders of the ITF bloc in Kirkuk told IPAOs on July 
26, 2006, that the Turkoman of the ITF bloc and the mostly Sunni 
Arabs of the Iraqi National Gathering bloc were unified on their 
position on Article 140.  They said implementation of Article 
140 must be under international supervision and that there must 
be equal representation of Arabs, Turkoman, and Kurds on the 
committee to normalize Kirkuk and implement Article 140.  The 
ITF representatives also said the referendum on Kirkuk's final 
status must be decided on a national level and not limited to 
residents of Kirkuk city or province. 
 
(C) KIRKUK SHOULD BE AUTONOMOUS, KURDS STALLING IPCC CLAIMS 
--------------------------------------------- -------------- 
¶3.  (C) The ITF leaders said Kirkuk should remain its own 
autonomous region and should not be incorporated into the KRG 
administered areas.  They said the Kurds and other advocates of 
returning districts and sub-districts detached under Saddam to 
Kirkuk Province were ignoring that Chamchamal, for example, was 
part of Sulaymaniyah prior to the British occupation following 
World War One.   The ITF representatives added they had met with 
the IPCC head, Ahmad Barak, during their recent trip to Baghdad 
for the purpose of arguing their position on Article 140.  They 
claimed Barak told them over 10,000 IPCC claims, many of them 
Turkoman, remained unprocessed because the two Kurdish 
representatives to the IPCC in Baghdad refused to sign them. 
(Note:  Kirkuk IPCC head, Kamal Jamal, told IPAOs on June 25 
that the two Kurdish representatives to the IPCC in Baghdad 
refused to assume their positions due to security concerns (Ref. 
Kirkuk 000123).  The IPCC was recently renamed the Commission 
for Resolution of Real Property Disputes (CRRPD).  End note.) 
 
(C) NON-ITF PARTIES DOMINATED BY KURDS 
-------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (C) The ITF members claimed that Turkoman who broke with the 
ITF were dominated by Kurds, were only concerned with pushing 
Article 140 forward, and did not care about Turkoman problems. 
The ITF leaders claimed the Kurdish Kirkuk Provincial Council 
(KPC) Chair, Rizgar Ali, wrote a recent letter that was signed 
by ITNG members and sent to the ITF.  The letter criticized the 
ITF media for inciting ethnic violence by blaming the Kurds for 
the 1959 violence against the Turkoman of Kirkuk.  (Note:  The 
Communist Party and Turkoman political groups of Kirkuk clashed 
in July, 1959, with the Turkoman suffering the majority of 
casualties.  The Kirkuk Turkoman community frequently refers to 
this event as the "Turkoman Massacre" and places blame on the 
Kurds, due to the fact that 24 of the 28 convicted of 
perpetrating the violence were Kurds.  End note.) 
 
(C)     NO MILITIA, NO POWER 
------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (C) The ITF leaders said it was becoming increasingly clear 
to Turkoman that the reason the Kurds held sway in government 
was that they had a militia where the Turkoman and other parties 
did not, and that only parties with militias could succeed in 
Iraq's current political system.  They pointed to Baghdad's 
recent offer to enter negotiations with terrorist groups as an 
example of how arms can be used successfully to gain political 
leverage and capital. 
 
(C) ITNG - "KURDISTAN REGION IS THE TURKOMAN REGION" 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶6.  (C) The non-ITF, ITNG representatives in a separate meeting 
told IPAO on July 26, 2006, that it was in Turkoman interests to 
join the Kurdish region because they could not win against the 
Shia who were determined to dominate the south and the rest of 
Iraq.  The ITNG leaders said the Kurds had assisted and welcomed 
the Turkoman during the oppressions of the Saddam regime and 
claimed because of this Turkoman viewed Kurdistan as a Turkoman 
region.  They said the national constitution guaranteed the 
rights of Turkoman as a "nation" and that it was illegal to 
disconnect districts and sub-districts without the consent of 
the governed.  Saddam had acted illegally when he disconnected 
districts from Kirkuk Province, the ITNG members claimed, and 
 
KIRKUK 00000137  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
yet this was exactly what the ITF and Arabs were proposing for 
Kirkuk when they insisted it be an autonomous federated region. 
The ITNG member said it was preferable for the Turkoman to exist 
as a "second nation" within the KRG, where their rights would be 
secured, than to remain the "third nation" in Iraq. 
 
(C) ITF CREATING BAD BLOOD BETWEEN TURKOMAN AND KURDS 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
 
¶7.  (C) The ITNG members claimed the ITF media was creating bad 
blood between Turkoman and Kurds and expressed concern that 
killing based on ethnic-party association could occur as it did 
in 1959.  The representatives added that the approach of the ITF 
to Article 140 reflected their connection to the Turkish Foreign 
Ministry.  The ITNG leaders claimed the Turkish government was 
determined to undermine the normalization process in Kirkuk, and 
that the ITF continued to receive one million USD from Turkey to 
support various ITF media. 
 
(C) BIOGRPAHIC NOTES ON ATTENDING ITF LEADERS 
--------------------------------------------- 
 
¶8.   (C) Hasan Turan Said:  Sunni Turkoman; won election to the 
KPC as part of the ITF list in January, 2005; born in Kirkuk 
city, 1964; began working in political affairs in 1982; one of 
the founding members of the Iraqi Turkoman Justice Party, which 
was organized after the liberation of the Kurdish areas in 1991 
and represents Sunni Turkoman; current spokesman for the Justice 
Party; head of the Turkoman Agricultural Engineers Association; 
assistant to the Secretary General of the Turkoman Council of 
Iraq; the Turkoman Justice Party is regarded as the second 
largest party in the ITF coalition after the Turkoman Eli Party. 
 
¶9.  (C) Younis Qadir Ismael Biraqdar:  Chairman of the Turkoman 
Council of Iraq; born Kirkuk, 1953; former KPC member; worked as 
an electrical engineer; received Bachelor's Degree in Electrical 
Engineering; former lecturer at the College of Engineering and 
Hewija Technical Institute; former head of the Engineers Union 
under Saddam; worked as engineer consultant in the private 
sector.  (Note:  the other two, younger ITF representatives 
frequently deferred to Biraqdar during the meeting to express 
the official Turkoman position on specific issues.  End note.) 
 
¶10.  (C) Turham Mudhir Hassan al-Mufti:  Shia Turkoman; member 
of the Turkoman Independent Movement; born in Kirkuk city; won a 
seat on the KPC as part of the ITF list in January, 2005; 
received his doctorate in Geochemistry; works as a Remote 
Sensing Engineer at the Northern Oil Company; wife was kidnapped 
in 2005 and returned after Mufti paid ransom. 
 
(C) BIOGRAPHIC NOTES ON ATTENDING ITNG LEADERS 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶11.   (C)  Mouyad Namiq Shakir:  Sunni Turkoman; born in Kirkuk; 
member of the Turkoman Peoples' Party (TPP), founded in Erbil in 
1987, but moved to Sulaymaniyah in 1996 when Saddam returned to 
Erbil; won seat on the KPC as part of the Kurd-dominated Kirkuk 
Brotherhood List; heads KPC Security Committee; head of 
De-Bathification Committee; member of the TPP Central Committee; 
heads the TPP's Information and Relations Bureau; received 
Bachelor's Degree in Law and is a practicing lawyer. 
 
¶12.     (C)  Mofaq Mohammed Qoryali:  Sunni Turkoman; born in 
Kirkuk, 1957; Secretary General of the Turkoman al-Shrooq 
("Sunrise") Party, founded in 1999 and represents Sunni 
Turkoman; according to Qoryali, the, party attracts women and 
student unions; his father opposed the former regime, resulting 
in his family being expelled by Saddam. 
 
¶13.  (C)  Saif al-Din Damrichi (Dr.):  Secretary General of the 
Turkoman Union Party (TUP), which was founded in exile; lived 17 
years in exile until OIF; two administrative bodies govern the 
TUP, the Central Committee with 13 party members,and the 
Politburo with 16 members. 
 
¶14.  (C)  Ali Sharika:  Representative for the Kirkuk branch of 
the Turkoman Brotherhood Party (TBP), founded in 1989 in 
response to Saddam's pressure on ethnic groups in Kirkuk; after 
1991 TBP started operating in the Kurdish liberated areas; TBP 
worked closely with the KDP and PUK, with offices in 
Sulaymaniyah and Kirkuk. 
 
(U) COMMENT 
----------- 
 
¶15.  (C) ITNG representatives noted that their parties, along 
with all other political parties in the Kurdish areas, received 
financial support from the KRG Ministry of Finance, which 
probably influences the official position of the ITNG on Article 
 
KIRKUK 00000137  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
140 and the future status of Kirkuk.  IPAO's past meetings with 
Turkoman leaders would indicate that the ITNG represents mostly 
Sunni Turkoman and that it exercises limited influence within 
the Kirkuk Brotherhood List.  The ITNG likely reflects the 
official Kurdish stance on key issues, while most Turkoman 
parties not belonging to the ITF bloc probably would agree with 
its position on Article 140 and Kirkuk becoming an autonomous 
province. 
JBIGUS