Turkmen facing ‘pressure’ to allow Iraq’s fragmentation

By Arif Yusuf

BAGHDAD (AA) - The Iraqi Turkmen Front on Tuesday said it was facing “pressure” from certain circles inside Iraq to accept the planned fragmentation of the ethnically-diverse country.

“Since 2003, Turkmen have warned of a systematic plan being hatched in [the northern city of] Kirkuk to end Turkmen resistance to Iraq’s planned fragmentation and efface the Turkmen identity,” the Front said in statement.

It goes on to assert that it is being targeted by its enemies via “illegal means”, including assassinations, kidnappings, threats and “economic warfare”.

According to the Front, the alleged plot against Iraq’s Turkmen has recently manifested itself in the form of “attempts by groups close to Iraqi Kurdish parties to foster divisions -- and fabricate security incidents -- pitting Iraq’s Turkmen against one another”.

The statement adds: “Turkmen are well aware of these plots, which are aimed at forcing us to accept Iraq’s fragmentation and the implementation of major demographic changes currently underway in Kirkuk.”

Earlier this year, the Front vociferously opposed a decision by Kirkuk’s provincial council calling for the Kurdish regional flag to be raised -- alongside Iraq’s national flag -- over oil-rich Kirkuk’s state institutions.

Turkmen have also voiced their rejection of a planned referendum -- slated for Sept. 25 -- on whether the northern Kurdish region should formally secede from the Iraqi state.

After Arabs and Kurds, Turkmen constitute Iraq’s third largest ethnic group, with a number of Turkmen communities concentrated in disputed areas between Baghdad and Iraq’s northern Kurdish region.

While there are no official figures regarding Iraq’s Turkmen population, Turkmen officials put the number at about 7 percent of Iraq’s roughly 33 million people.