Arbil- 19 Nov. (AKI) - A referendum to decide the future status of the province
of Kirkuk will take place at the end of the year, according to a senior minister
in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in Iraq.
The minister for the affairs of external areas in the autonomous region,
Muhammad Ihsan, said the government intends to proceed with the referendum.
"The referendum on the status of the contested province of Kirkuk will take
place at the end of the year, with the collaboration and coordination of the
electoral commission," he said.
The Kirkuk referendum is part of a plebiscite that will decide whether the
Kurdish regions in the Iraqi governates of Diyala, Kirkuk and Ninawa will become
part of the Kurdistan region.
The referendum was initially scheduled for mid-November and is now scheduled to
be held before 31 December. But Iran has called for a further delay of two years
and there is speculation that it will be postponed again.
Ihsan told the media that the government of Baghdad is willing to implement
article 140 of the constitution , which is designed to reverse the Arabisation
policies of Saddam Hussein.
But he said other authorities had not co-operated sufficiently in relation to
respecting the decisions of the council of ministers.
On this question, the head of the Kurdish Alliance in the Iraqi parlament Fuad
Maasum has appealed for a meeting between the three presidents of Iraq to
discuss the issue of article 140 and put an end to the differences.
In a statement on the Kurdish news portal, Bayamunir, Maasum emphasised the
"urgent need to call a meeting between the president of the republic, the Iraqi
prime minister and the Kurdish regional president about the issue, since the
situation is very delicate".
The Kurdish leader said article 140 affects not only Kirkuk, but all the
contested areas, for example the administrative areas between the provinces of
al-Anbar and Karbala.
Maasum then announced that "the session dedicated to the examination of article
140 scheduled for today has been postponed to the end of the week, since it is
necessary to bring together several ministers involved in its application and
ensure there are no government obstacles".
At the same time, the leading representative from the Kurdish Alliance, Mahmud
Othman, stressed that the census of 1957 will be adopted as the basis for the
progress of the referendum on the status of Kirkuk.
