Dispute Persists Over Oil-Rich City in North
By Sudarsan Raghavan and Qais Mizher
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, August 4, 2008
BAGHDAD, Aug. 3 -- Iraqi lawmakers on Sunday failed to settle a dispute over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and pass a provincial elections bill viewed as vital for national reconciliation, despite intense pressure from the United States and the United Nations.
The political stalemate came as a car exploded in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of northern Baghdad, killing 12 and wounding 22, according to police. Later Sunday, a car bombing in front of a coffee shop in the southern city of Hilla killed one person and injured 12, police said.
The attacks underscored Iraq's fragile security, even as levels of violence across the country fall to four-year lows.
Iraq's parliament called a special session Sunday to vote for the second time on the elections bill, which must be approved before elections can be held in the country's 18 provinces. But the session never convened, because Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen lawmakers were unable to reach an agreement on Kirkuk, where their respective ethnic groups are locked in a struggle for land and resources.
Kurds want Kirkuk to become part of the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, but Arabs and Turkmens want the city to remain under central government control.
The elections would give more power to regions as well as to Sunni Arabs, who boycotted the last provincial elections in 2005. The Bush administration views the vote as vital to bridging Iraq's political divide and cementing security gains.
But even before Sunday, Iraq's electoral commission had said the elections, originally scheduled for Oct. 1, could not take place until early next year.
On Sunday, President Bush telephoned Iraq's Shiite vice president, Adel Abdul Mahdi, as well as the Sunni speaker of parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, according to statements from their offices. U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker and U.N. special representative Staffan de Mistura met late Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to find ways to dissolve the impasse.
"President Bush has been working with the Iraqis to encourage them to work out their differences and get the provincial elections law passed," White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters in Washington.
Last month, Kurdish lawmakers boycotted the first vote, but parliament passed the bill in a secret ballot. President Jalal Talabani, an ethnic Kurd, vetoed the bill, sending it back to parliament for further discussion.
The Kurds rejected provisions in the bill that called for Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens to have an equal number of seats on the provincial council of Tamim province, of which Kirkuk is the capital.
Tensions have risen dramatically since then. Last week, a female suicide bomber detonated explosives in a crowd of Kurds protesting the legislation, triggering ethnic clashes that pit Kurds against Turkmens and Arabs. The bombing and fighting killed 25 and injured 187, according to police and hospital officials in Kirkuk. Since then, more demonstrations against the elections bill have further stoked tensions.
Qasim Dawood, an independent Shiite lawmaker, said Kurds wanted the bill to include a reference to Kirkuk's constitutionally mandated referendum on Kirkuk's status but that Arab lawmakers rejected that. The Arab lawmakers accuse the Kurds of bringing more than 750,000 Kurds into Kirkuk to affect any vote.
"The elections can't be done in this year, and that will have a negative reflection on the security and political situation," Dawood said.
Several Iraqi lawmakers said U.S. pressure could throw Iraq into further political chaos.
"The Americans are pushing for the elections at any price, and that is incorrect," said Mahdi al-Hafidh, a Community Party lawmaker. "The country is not quiet, and there is not a good climate for this election."
"There's no way to find a solution to a 100-year-old problem in days," said Mahmoud Othman, an independent Kurdish legislator. "Mr. Bush is pressing the Iraqi politicians to make a fast deal, but this kind of pressure will have a negative result on Iraq's situation. We have to delay the election in Kirkuk to give the people on the ground more time to talk and the committees to discuss the situation and to build trust between the sects in Kirkuk."
Special correspondent Aziz Alwan contributed to this report.
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