America Tolerates Others to Make Northern Iraq Kurd by Force

An influential U.S. newspaper, The New York Times, wrote in its June 20 edition, that Kurds in Northern Iraq were changing the region’s demographic and political structure by confiscating fields, and forcing thousand of Iraqi Arabs into refugee camps.

The New York Times reported that while thousands of Kurdish villages in the region were destroyed during Saddam Hussein’s era, Arabs who settled in these places were forcibly sent away by Kurds with little American interference.

Thousands of Kurds ignored the instructions of American officials and pushed into the center of the country and set up tents, or confiscated houses.

According to one account however, American officials, during a meeting with Kurdish leaders in Erbil (Irbil) said that they would not object to Kurds settling in regions south of the green line.

In addition, Americans have been financing projects in Kurdish controlled areas of Mahmur, once populated by Arabs.

The Kurdish migration to the south has caused misery, and according to American officials, displaced more than 100,000 Arabs.

The largest danger is in Kerkuk (Kirkuk), an oil rich city claimed by Turkmens, Arabs and Kurds. The paper reported that Kurdish leaders want the city as their capital. Roughly 10,000 Kurds have set up camps on the city’s edges and have demanded entrance.

American officials, to avoid igniting an ethnic conflict with Arabs already living in the city, have so far denied attempts to expel the Arabs.

A Kurdish official in the Mahmur region said, "We made sure there wasn’t a single Arab left here who came as part of the Arabization program."

The newspaper, referring to the Kurdish officials, wrote that while 80 percent of Mahmur region was Arab before the war, today 80 percent of the population in this region is Kurdish.

http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20040621&hn=9697