KRG reiterates support for Kirkuk
30 November 2009
New Prime Minister pays visit to Kirkuk and promises to support rebuilding process.
The KRG will continue to help Kirkuk in its reconstruction and development process, working in tandem with the city's authorities.
The newly appointed Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government and the head of the Sixth Cabinet, Dr. Barham Salih, paid a
visit to the main disputed city of Kirkuk on Tuesday. The KRG Premier was accompanied by Mr. Kamaran Ahmed, KRG Minister of
Reconstruction, Aso Najib, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Dr. Noori Osman, head of the Ministerial Council Office, and a number of
other KRG officials.
PM Salih gave the promise of KRG to back, support, and help Kirkuk, and emphasized that it is their responsibility to serve Kirkuk and help
remove the effects of the historic oppression faced by the city.
"I am a Kurd and see Kirkuk as part of the Kurdistan Region, but the Turkmen and Arab brothers have a different view than mine," Salih
said in a meeting with Kirkuk Governor, Deputy Governor, head and members of the Provincial Council of Kirkuk, representatives of the
Arab and Turkmen parties, and other officials from the city. "Thus, the ideas or solutions of none of the parties alone should be forced in
Kirkuk, but we should rather solve the issue via constitutional methods. Whoever claims Kirkuk belongs to him, let him serve the city. We
are proud that we have done a good job in serving Kirkuk."
Despite the fact that Kirkuk is still not part of the Kurdistan Region and it has a separate development budget, the KRG has helped the city
to a considerable extent in its reconstruction and development process by participating in providing basic services to the city's population
and implementing a number of projects in cooperation and coordination with local authorities.
KRG's Sixth Cabinet Premier promised on Tuesday to keep helping the city out and providing it with full support in all sectors such as
health, education, municipalities, environment, human development such as training technical cadres in Kirkuk, and other areas.
In another meeting on the same day with the Arab and Turkmen parties, Dr. Salih discussed the mechanism of better supporting and
rebuilding the city.
In a press conference held for PM Salih during his visit to the city, he said that political disagreements must in no way result in conflict or
as a result disregard the city or paralyze the reconstruction and services projects and the economic progress in Kirkuk.
Kirkuk has been a major source of dispute among different political groups in Iraq due to its vast natural resources, namely oil. This has
made Kirkuk more of a battlefield rather than a city.
Intentional demographic change in Kirkuk was used by the collapsed Baathist Regime to change the ethnic identity of the city by displacing
its original Kurdish population and resettling Arabs from the central and southern provinces of the country in Kirkuk.
Currently, the population of Kirkuk consists of Kurds, Turkmen, and Arabs, and thus the dispute is still going on about who shall reign the
province. All of these conflicts have led to negligence toward the living situation of its population as well as to the reconstruction and
development process of this oil-rich city.
The majority of the city's neighborhoods is ruined and lacks very basic infrastructure services such as roads, electricity, water supply,
sanitary needs, and so on. The fragile security situation and ongoing insurgency in the city has made it much too difficult for anybody to
reconstruct the city.
While Kirkuk is part of the disputed areas covered by Article 140 of the Iraqi Permanent Constitution, Kurdistan Region claims that Kirkuk
should be part of the KRG, the central government says that it should be a separate independent province and remain under the central
government's control, and the Turkmen population of the city claim that they should take control of the province.
After the 2003 Iraq War, the KRG gave special significance to Kirkuk and has been expanding its scope of influence in the city; it has tried
to help out its population and save it from disaster by dedicating part of its budget to implement a series of projects in cooperation with the
city's authorities and in alignment with their priorities.
For instance, the high-ranking KRG delegation headed by PM Salih promised city officials to implement a number of projects in the near
future in coordination with the Kirkuk Governorate.
Dr. Salih announced that the KRG Minister of Reconstruction, Mr. Kamaran Ahmed, has been assigned as the KRG's coordinator of the
reconstruction and public services projects with the Kirkuk Governorate.
Finally, the delegation stated that they attached a high degree of importance to the returning displaced families and would help them
establish a favorable living in their city of origin. As well, they emphasized that Article 140 is of high significance to the KRG, and that it will
try its best to push the Article toward full implementation.
By Aiyob Mawloodi
By Aiyob Mawloodi
The Kurdish Globe 2009
Article originally published by The Kurdish Globe 30-Nov-09
Copyright 2009 ABQ Zawya Ltd. All rights reserved. PDF provided by www.zawya.com
30 November 2009
New Prime Minister pays visit to Kirkuk and promises to support rebuilding process.
The KRG will continue to help Kirkuk in its reconstruction and development process, working in tandem with the city's authorities.
The newly appointed Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government and the head of the Sixth Cabinet, Dr. Barham Salih, paid a
visit to the main disputed city of Kirkuk on Tuesday. The KRG Premier was accompanied by Mr. Kamaran Ahmed, KRG Minister of
Reconstruction, Aso Najib, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs, Dr. Noori Osman, head of the Ministerial Council Office, and a number of
other KRG officials.
PM Salih gave the promise of KRG to back, support, and help Kirkuk, and emphasized that it is their responsibility to serve Kirkuk and help
remove the effects of the historic oppression faced by the city.
"I am a Kurd and see Kirkuk as part of the Kurdistan Region, but the Turkmen and Arab brothers have a different view than mine," Salih
said in a meeting with Kirkuk Governor, Deputy Governor, head and members of the Provincial Council of Kirkuk, representatives of the
Arab and Turkmen parties, and other officials from the city. "Thus, the ideas or solutions of none of the parties alone should be forced in
Kirkuk, but we should rather solve the issue via constitutional methods. Whoever claims Kirkuk belongs to him, let him serve the city. We
are proud that we have done a good job in serving Kirkuk."
Despite the fact that Kirkuk is still not part of the Kurdistan Region and it has a separate development budget, the KRG has helped the city
to a considerable extent in its reconstruction and development process by participating in providing basic services to the city's population
and implementing a number of projects in cooperation and coordination with local authorities.
KRG's Sixth Cabinet Premier promised on Tuesday to keep helping the city out and providing it with full support in all sectors such as
health, education, municipalities, environment, human development such as training technical cadres in Kirkuk, and other areas.
In another meeting on the same day with the Arab and Turkmen parties, Dr. Salih discussed the mechanism of better supporting and
rebuilding the city.
In a press conference held for PM Salih during his visit to the city, he said that political disagreements must in no way result in conflict or
as a result disregard the city or paralyze the reconstruction and services projects and the economic progress in Kirkuk.
Kirkuk has been a major source of dispute among different political groups in Iraq due to its vast natural resources, namely oil. This has
made Kirkuk more of a battlefield rather than a city.
Intentional demographic change in Kirkuk was used by the collapsed Baathist Regime to change the ethnic identity of the city by displacing
its original Kurdish population and resettling Arabs from the central and southern provinces of the country in Kirkuk.
Currently, the population of Kirkuk consists of Kurds, Turkmen, and Arabs, and thus the dispute is still going on about who shall reign the
province. All of these conflicts have led to negligence toward the living situation of its population as well as to the reconstruction and
development process of this oil-rich city.
The majority of the city's neighborhoods is ruined and lacks very basic infrastructure services such as roads, electricity, water supply,
sanitary needs, and so on. The fragile security situation and ongoing insurgency in the city has made it much too difficult for anybody to
reconstruct the city.
While Kirkuk is part of the disputed areas covered by Article 140 of the Iraqi Permanent Constitution, Kurdistan Region claims that Kirkuk
should be part of the KRG, the central government says that it should be a separate independent province and remain under the central
government's control, and the Turkmen population of the city claim that they should take control of the province.
After the 2003 Iraq War, the KRG gave special significance to Kirkuk and has been expanding its scope of influence in the city; it has tried
to help out its population and save it from disaster by dedicating part of its budget to implement a series of projects in cooperation with the
city's authorities and in alignment with their priorities.
For instance, the high-ranking KRG delegation headed by PM Salih promised city officials to implement a number of projects in the near
future in coordination with the Kirkuk Governorate.
Dr. Salih announced that the KRG Minister of Reconstruction, Mr. Kamaran Ahmed, has been assigned as the KRG's coordinator of the
reconstruction and public services projects with the Kirkuk Governorate.
Finally, the delegation stated that they attached a high degree of importance to the returning displaced families and would help them
establish a favorable living in their city of origin. As well, they emphasized that Article 140 is of high significance to the KRG, and that it will
try its best to push the Article toward full implementation.
By Aiyob Mawloodi
By Aiyob Mawloodi
The Kurdish Globe 2009Article originally published by The Kurdish Globe 30-Nov-09
Copyright
2009 ABQ Zawya Ltd. All rights reserved. PDF provided by www.zawya.com