Iraq: Turkmen leader warns of Kirkuk poll measures

By Hussein al-Amir

BAGHDAD (AA) – The holding of provincial elections in the disputed Iraqi province of Kirkuk in April 2020 without checking "forged" voter records could trigger a civil war that might alter Iraq's geographic and political map, warned the head of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) on Wednesday.

Arshad Salihi said in a Wednesday tweet that if the voter records are verified, the polls in Kirkuk, Iraq’s oil artery, could maintain Iraq’s political situation, but if not, elections could lead to civil war that changes the map of Iraq.

Iraq’s parliament on Monday approved amendments to provincial elections law setting out the holding of municipal elections in Kirkuk next April, for the first time since 2005.

Under the changes, voter records in Kirkuk should be verified, except for those covered under Article 140.

Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution provides for the removal of the “Arabization” demographic policies conducted by the regime of late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in disputed areas at the expense of the Kurds and Turkmen Iraqis.

The article also calls for settling the situation in disputed regions between Baghdad and Erbil and giving the population the right to choose to remain under the federal government or join the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

It was scheduled to complete the stages related to the implementation of Article 140 by the end of 2007, but security and political problems prevented it, as Iraqi Kurds accuse Baghdad of procrastination in implementation of the article.