Turkoman struggle for rights could cause ethnic tensions in north

In a country of mixed religions and cultures the Turkoman are searching for rights equal to those they see given to Arabs and Kurds, but political disagreements over land could fuel tensions in the north where all three groups live. According to the Turkoman National Front (TNF), there are about 3 million Turkomans in Iraq, especially in the northern areas between Tal Afar and Mandily and in north Baghdad. In Kirkuk, according to the census of 1957 - the last one before Saddam Hussein's Arabisation policies distorted the ethnic make-up of the region - they represented 75 percent of the city's population. "We are just searching for respect and our rights. We hope that the new government won't make differences between us and other cultures, but consider all of us as one; the same laws and same rights for all Iraqis," Maysun Mustafa Hamid, a spokeswoman for the TNF, told IRIN in Kirkuk. Hamid said that since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime they have seen very little in the way of aid. Only the Turkish Red Crescent Society (TRCS) has delivered aid to them, and then only in the Tal Afar area and not in Kirkuk, where many Turkoman live. She added that this aid was brought from a camp set up by the TRCS at the border, where camps had been established to help those homeless after the war. But in the end little help reached the Turkomans as most of the people in this area were in fact Kurds. Ahmet Betali, director of Mideast Waqf relief, told IRIN that Turkey and Mideast Waqf for Relief are raising funds and collecting donations from Turkish people, including foodstuffs and medicines, to be transferred to the northern Iraqi cities of Tal Afar, Kirkuk and even heavily battered cities like Fallujah and Ramadi, in an effort to meet the needs of the Turkoman people. The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and the Iraq Red Crescent Society (IRCS) say they haven't been informed of those needs yet. According to Turkoman Shi'ite Council (TSC), the country's largest group of Shi'ite Turkoman, since 1922 Iraqi governments have done nothing to help the third biggest ethnic group in Iraq, rather they have tried to suppress them. Saddam Hussein's regime, in his Arabisation process, made most of the Turkoman people leave from the northern provinces of Kirkuk and Diyala, accommodating Arabs on their places to achieve political ends. It also banned the Turkic language spoken by the Turkomans. Now they are back, but according to the TSC the Kurds want to be in charge. "Kirkuk is a base of the Turkoman and not of the Kurds, if you come to the history of the town you can see that we were the majority and now they want to have control over our city," Suheyla Jihan, 56, a Turkoman civilian from Kirkuk, told IRIN. The Ministry of Human Rights, Burtiar Amin, told IRIN that they were working according to the life story of each family. He added that every Iraqi of any ethnic origin or religion would have their rights guaranteed in the new democratic government. But with the number of Kurds in Kirkuk now increasing, Arabs and Turkomans are expressing concerns, and are even accusing the Kurds of settling thousands of non-Iraqi Kurds in the city. TSC claims that Kurds already are "enjoying facilities and privileges from the occupiers and the government". "It is an historic mistake and it has severe consequences, Kurds are trying to change the demographic structure in their favour prior to a census and general elections," Khudir Galib, the Turkoman representative on the Committee of the Deported Kurds told IRIN. He also added that Kurds were working to create a "security belt" by forming residential compounds around Kirkuk. Kurdish representatives say that Kirkuk is part of the history of Kurds. "Kirkuk is Kurdish and we want to be on top," Kamal Kirkukli, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) representative, told IRIN in the city, which sits on top of some of Iraq's largest oil reserves. But many civilians of the town dispute this and claim that if things remain as they are, the risks of ethnic strife between Kurds, Arabs and Turkomans will rise. "Our position is that Kirkuk must be the town of all ethnic groups and all religions, if the coming Kurds were really from Kirkuk, our doors would be opened for them, but most of them are not," Muhammad Namak, 43, a Turkoman civilian in Kirkuk, told IRIN.