Kirkuk Council discusses raising Kurdish flag
Published in: Iraq,
Iraqi Parliament [file photo]
Kirkuk Provincial Council is to hold a meeting to discuss raising the Kurdish flag on public buildings in the Iraqi province, Anadolu reported on Monday.
The council is likely to hold a referendum on the issue following the refusal by the national parliament in Baghdad to fly the Kurdish flag alongside the flag of Iraq in Kirkuk. Kurdish MPs withdrew from the parliamentary meeting at which the decision was made.
Image of the Kurdish flag Kurdishstruggle/Flickr]
A referendum is also to be considered to ask the residents of the city if they want to remain under the central Baghdad administration or join the autonomous Kurdish Region. Anadolu said that these measures come as Kirkuk’s Governor, Najmiddin Karim, had refused to heed the Iraqi parliament’s decision to lower the Kurdish flag.
According to Hassan Torhan, a Turkmen representative in the Iraqi parliament, the referendum is an “escalation” measure. “We are against any individual decisions taken by any party that escalates the situation,” he told Anadolu, stressing the importance of referring the issue to the Constitution and law in order to avoid further difficulties.
Iraqi news websites reported on Tuesday that Kirkuk Council had voted to hold a referendum on the province’s secession from Iraq in order to join autonomous Kurdistan. Turkmen MP Jasem Jaafar warned that the decision to ignore the Iraqi parliament and carry out a referendum could “divide the council into two… causing big problems.”
During the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga forces seized Kirkuk, prompting an influx of Kurds into the city. Baghdad says that Kirkuk is administratively dependent on Iraq’s central government, while the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party demands Kirkuk’s incorporation into the Kurdish Region. The population of Kirkuk is composed mainly of people from Arab, Turkmen and Kurdish backgrounds.
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