Kurdish move to annex district angers Arabs in Iraq’s Mosul

 

By Ali Shatab

 

September 15, 2009

 

The fate of the majority Kurdish towns and districts which are administratively and constitutionally linked to the Province of Nineveh is straining relations between Kurds and Arabs in Iraq.

 

The Kurds have lost their majority in the Nineveh provincial council in the last election, but are using their majority in certain districts as a weapon.

 

The latest Kurdish decision to annex the district of Makhmour to the Kurdish semi-independent enclave has drawn the indignation of several provincial officials.

 

Mosul is the capital of Nineveh Province, which is predominantly populated by Arabs. However, the Kurds make up the majority in several districts.

 

“The Kurdish decision to annex Makhmour is illegal and unconstitutional,” said Osama al-Najafi, a parliamentary deputy from Mosul.

 

He said Nineveh council would under no circumstances “accept any partition of the province and allow the annexation of any of its districts to the Kurdish region.”

 

Abdulkarim al-Samarraai, another deputy, said: “No authority can encroach on provincial borders and if any changes are made to provincial maps they must be done through negotiations and must be constitutional.”

 

Relations are tense in the province certain parts of which have turned into a stronghold for rebels fighting U.S. occupation and the government.

 

The rebels also attack Kurdish militias known locally as peshmergas with bases in Mosul and several other towns.

 

There have been calls for the militias to leave.