VZCZCXRO6245
RR RUEHBC RUEHDA RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK
DE RUEHGB #0892/01 0911131
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 011131Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 2497
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHYE/AMEMBASSY YEREVAN 0018

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 000892 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV IZ AM
SUBJECT: Armenian Community Clings to Independence in Kirkuk. 
 
This is a PRT Kirkuk reporting cable. 
 
This message is Sensitive but Unclassified; handle accordingly.  Not 
for distribution on the Internet 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY:  On March 11 PRT Kirkuk visited leaders of the 
Armenian community at their headquarters in Kirkuk City.  The 93 
Armenian families in Kirkuk (520 people) are the remnants of the 
Armenians that fled persecution in Turkey between 1915 and 1918. 
While the Armenian population has dropped over the past 50 years, it 
appears to have stabilized over the past couple of years.  The 
Kirkuk Armenians are closely tied to other groups of Armenians 
across Iraq, the largest of which is in Baghdad.  The Armenians are 
fiercely independent and consciously remove themselves from the 
political landscape in Kirkuk.  The self-described goal of the 
Armenian community is to maintain their "language, religion and 
ethnicity".  They appear to have good relations with the other 
ethnicities in Kirkuk, and maintain especially close ties with the 
Assyrians.  There is no evidence of any persecution or 
discrimination against this small ethnic group.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (SBU) On March 11, PRT Team Leader along, with IPAO, visited 
leaders of Kirkuk's Armenian community at their headquarters in the 
Almas area of Kirkuk City.  This trip is part of an ongoing PRT 
outreach initiative to minority communities in Kirkuk province.  The 
meeting took place in the well furnished office of Keork Stragyam, 
Chairman of the Armenian Ethnic Committee (AEC). The AEC is a 
five-member committee that acts as the primary governing body in the 
Armenian community.  Four other Armenian leaders attended the 
meeting:  Father Avedek Marderosyan, the lone priest of the Armenian 
Orthodox Church in Kirkuk; Mases Sarkesyan, Secretary of the AEC; 
and Agob Yagobyan and Rafi Yeranosyan, both members of the AEC. Both 
Mases and Agob are also employed as engineers at the Northern Oil 
Company (NOC).  The meeting took place at the Armenia{ 
?b('9QQO}g,Bx building, which doubles as a sports complex, complete 
with a large meeting hall and an outdoor basketball court. 
 
¶3. (U) The 93 Armenian families (520 people) in Kirkuk are the 
remnants of the Armenian Diaspora that fled persecution in Turkey 
between 1915 and 1918.  The Armenians that fled to Iraq came in 
several waves, each settling in a different area of Iraq.  There are 
surviving Armenian communities in Baghdad, Basra, Kirkuk, Zakho, 
Dahuk, Mosul, and Erbil.  Baghdad contains the largest Armenian 
community in Iraq (estimated by the Kirkuki Armenians at 6000 
people), and is the center of authority for the Armenian Orthodox 
Church (also know as the Armenian Apostolic Church).  Each of the 
Armenian communities in Iraq except Erbil has an elected five-member 
AEC subordinate to the AEC in Baghdad.  According to Keork Stragyam, 
there are approximately 20,000 Armenians currently living in Iraq, 
with Baghdad and Basra maintaining the largest populations. 
 
¶4. (U) The Kirkuk Armenians have seen their population drop from 
almost 4000 people in 1958, to 750 in 2003, and now 520 people.  The 
vast majority of those leaving Iraq have settled in the Los Angeles 
area, with a smaller population residing in France.  According to 
the Armenian leaders, unemployment is the primary reason for 
emigration; however security has also been a factor.  They pointed 
out that, while Armenian emigration from Kirkuk has not completely 
stopped, the population seems to have stabilized in the past year or 
so.  The Armenian leaders also reported that Armenians from the 
South of Iraq, particularly Basra, are slowly moving northward to 
QSouth of Iraq, particularly Basra, are slowly moving northward to 
cities such as Mosul, Kirkuk and Erbil.  Shi'a persecution is the 
primary reason for this migration.  Despite the precipitous decrease 
in their population over the past 50 years, the Armenians remain 
confident that they will be able to maintain their community in 
Kirkuk for the foreseeable future. 
 
¶5. (U) After 1918, many of Kirkuk's Armenians worked in technical 
jobs for the NOC at the behest of the British.  According to Agob 
Yagobyan, the British hired mostly Armenians and Assyrians because 
the Arabs and Kurds were not well enough educated for the work. 
Today the Armenian neighborhood in Almas is full of British-built 
brick houses left over from the first half of the 20th century. 
Today eight of the 93 Armenian families in Kirkuk have members 
working for the NOC.  Most other Armenian families work as 
machinists and mechanics and are known for their expertise in 
repairing engines of various kinds.  The Armenian leaders stated 
that none of their community serves in the Iraqi Army, as it 
requires people to leave their home areas.  Some are in the Iraqi 
Police, but the numbers are limited mainly because they do not have 
the connections in government necessary to obtain these jobs. 
 
¶6. (U) The Armenian Church is the focal point of the Armenian 
community in Kirkuk.  Services are held every Friday to correspond 
with the majority Islamic population and workweek.  The Armenian 
church in Kirkuk was built in 1932 and is located in the Corea area, 
now predominantly Turkomen.  Plans are under way to build a new 
Armenian church in the Almas area on land adjacent to the Armenian 
community headquarters building.  The Armenian community holds 
numerous internal social functions and plays bingo every Friday 
 
BAGHDAD 00000892  002 OF 002 
 
 
night at the headquarters building.  These events are closed to 
outsiders.  While the Armenians converse fluently in Arabic, they 
maintain their dialect of the Armenian language at home.  All 
Armenian children in Kirkuk attend Armenian language classes at the 
Armenian community headquarters building.  The Armenian leaders 
stressed the importance of maintaining their "language, religion and 
ethnicity".  They reported that Armenian is spoken in all the other 
Armenian communities in Iraq except in Zakho where they now only 
speak Kurdish. 
 
¶7. (SBU) The Kirkuk Armenians prefer "Iraqi identification" when 
presented with the prospect of joining Kurdistan.  They declared 
that they are Iraqi first and Armenian second.  When their 
grandfathers immigrated to Kirkuk between 1915 and 1918, the Arabs 
in the area "welcomed" them and "helped them in all ways".  They 
intimated that have closer ties to the Arabs in Kirkuk than the 
Kurds.  They would prefer to see a "Kirkuk for the Kirkuki people". 
When asked how long the US military should stay in Iraq, the 
Armenian leaders appeared hesitant to answer and only said they have 
no problem with the Americans. 
 
¶8. (U) The Armenians made clear that they are fiercely protective of 
their independence as a community.  They repeated several times 
during their meeting with the PRT their desire to remain removed 
from politics in the province.  In the summer of 2008 the Armenians 
were offered a designated position on the Kirkuk City Council - an 
offer they refused, citing their preference to not get involved in 
Kirkuk's political landscape.  Keork Stragyam referred to a saying 
in Arabic which says you cannot get bitten by the same snake twice; 
the lessons learned from Turkey in the early 20th century are still 
fresh for Kirkuk's Armenians. This was practically the only subject 
that seemed to bother them as they stated that they are still 
waiting for Turkey to apologize. The Armenian community is largely 
closed; however they do maintain social contact with the Assyrian 
community in Kirkuk (they were proud to point out that their names 
end in the same "yam" suffix and it is how to distinguish them from 
other ethnicities).  Traditionally, marriages have only occurred 
between Armenian families; however, due to dwindling numbers there 
have been "a few" recent cases of Armenians marrying Assyrians in 
Kirkuk. 
 
¶9. (SBU) COMMENT:  The Armenian community in Kirkuk, despite its 
small size, appears strong, well adjusted and self reliant.  They 
had few complaints about their situation and seemed only to want to 
be left alone.  Their headquarters building was well furnished and 
undergoing renovations - demonstrating their relative material 
wealth. They did cite the same concerns as other religious 
minorities about the lack of any funding from the central 
government. There is no evidence that the Armenians are experiencing 
any persecution or discrimination in Kirkuk province, and they 
clearly stated this.  Their desire to remain identified with Iraq's 
Central Government likely reflects their close ties to the Armenian 
Church in Baghdad.  It is highly unlikely that the Armenians will 
play any role in Kirkuk's political future, due entirely to their 
own preferences and actions.  END COMMENT. 
Butenis