From Bosnia To Kirkuk

BY SEDAT ERGIN
HURRIYET- Columnist Sedat Ergin comments on recent developments in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. A summary of his column is as follows:
Recent developments one after another in Iraq have shown how a scenario, the one which Ankara feared the most in buildup to war, is gradually becoming a reality. The underlying reason behind Turkey’s opposition to the Iraq war was that it would deal a crushing blow to the country’s already fragile ethnic structure, and drag the nation into a constant state of turmoil, thus threatening Iraq’s national integrity. Last weekend’s violent incidents that erupted after a group of peshmerga loyal to Jalal Talabani killed 11 Turkmen in a province near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk signalled that it was only a matter of time before a bloody clash between the Turkmen and Kurds might add fuel to the fire.
With the latest incident, the Bush administration should have realized by now that it made a grave mistake, just like Germany’s years ago in Bosnia, in its policy towards the ethnic Turkmen population. The US has pursued a misguided policy in ignoring the complex ethnic structure of Kirkuk – where four main groups (Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds and Assyrians) are vying for power – and in favoring Kurds at the expense of the other three. It is apparent that Washington has given Kurds a status of ‘most favored ethnic group’ as a gift in return for the support for the US given by Talabani and Massoud Barzani during the war.
The main problem is that the US is staying silent on various efforts towards the ‘Kurdification’ of Kirkuk. One can easily see numerous examples of this. Arabic signs in public buildings have been replaced by Kurdish ones. The Kurdish peshmerga have been deployed as the city’s police force. And of course, there were population shifts in order to boost the number of Kurdish people in the region.
The Bush administration must alter its Kirkuk policy if it does not want to create a second ‘Bosnia’ in Iraq. It should stand at an equal, impartial distance from each group. Otherwise, the US will be sowing the seeds of hatred between these groups, which would make an Iraqi ethnic war with tremendous implications for the entire region all but inevitable.