Kirkuk, Iraq - A political party representing ethnic minority Turkmen in northern Iraq on Monday called for the creation of a Turkmen militia that would work alongside Iraqi security forces, following the murder of a leading member the night before. The Iraqi Turkmen Front made the call in a statement mourning the death of its Mosul representative Yawiz Ahmed Hussein, who was gunned down in front of his house in the east of the city Sunday.
"Throughout this past year, many of the victims of terrorism and violence in Iraq were Turkmen," the group said.
In a separate attack on Sunday, Sheikh Fadil Jaroh, a leader of the Shabak ethnic minority, was killed in Majmoua, also in the eastern Mosul.
The city, located around 400 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad, and its surroundings are among the most ethnically diverse regions of Iraq. It is also among the most dangerous. Despite successive security pushes that police say have netted hundreds of suspected insurgents, gunmen continue to launch near-daily attacks in the area.
In Kirkuk, likewise home to a patchwork of ethnicities and religions, four armed men abducted a Christian man, police told the German Press Agency...
Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/295885,minorities-in-northern-iraq-targeted-in-assassinations-abductions.html.
An Open Letter to Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan
9 years ago
Turkmens are not a minority in Iraq. There are 3 million Turkmens in Iraq, i.e. 12% of the Iraqi population. Turkmens are Iraq's third main ethnic community and the north of Iraq's second main ethnic community.
ReplyDeleteThe discrimination against the Turkmens in Iraq, their marginalization, the denial of their historical role and achievements in Iraq and the denial of their true representation as the third largest ethnic group in Iraq have been initiated by the British colonial authorities at the end of World War I in 1918, for geopolitical and economical reasons.
The British purposely underestimated the number of Turkmens to facilitate the separation of ‘Mosul Vilayat’ or ‘Mosul Province’ (now representing five Iraqi provinces: Mosul, Kerkuk, Erbil, Duhok and Suleymaniya) from the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) in order to control the huge oil reserves of Kerkuk which was then mainly inhabited by Turkmens.
Since Iraq became an independent state in 1921 the successive Iraqi governments have continued to undermine and marginalize the Turkmens for the same geopolitical and economical reasons. Under the previous regime the Turkmens have been victims of discrimination, deportation and property confiscation.
Today, the 3 million Turkmens of Iraq continue to suffer from discrimination, marginalisation, ill-treatment and basic human rights violations and their ordeal continues as they are caught between hammer and anvil.
Turkmens continue to be constitutionally discriminated, institutionally marginalized and ill-treated as a community in Iraq by the political parties, who have been promoted and brought into power by the occupation forces.
The Kurdish political parties and their allies, who are dominating Iraqi politics since the occupation of the country in April 2003, have agreed – for strictly partisan reasons – to continue suppressing the Turkmens’ rights and their true representation in Iraq.
They continue denying the Turkmens the constitutional rights to be recognised as a main community of the country with rights equal to those granted to the Arabs and the Kurds in the new constitution of Iraq.