Commenting AP journalist Brian Murphy’s article in which he gives misleading information about Kerkuk

Journalist Brian Murphy is misleading his readers when he writes : “The northern city is a fault line between the majority Kurds and Arabs, but also includes ethnic Turks and various Christian groups”

For many centuries Kerkuk has been the Turkmens’ capital city and main cultural centre in Iraq, Turkmens are not an insignificant minority in the city as implied in Brian Murphy’s article.

If Brian Murphy had done his homework he would know that Kurds are newcomers in Kerkuk.  They were settled in Kerkuk by the Kurdish warlords Barzani and Talabani to change the demography of the city.

The largest demographical change happened since 2003 when over 600.000 Kurds were brought to Kerkuk and surrounding Turkmen towns. The majority of these immigrant Kurds had not been evicted from the city by the Baath regime, they came from Iran, Syria and other parts of Northern Iraq.

In April 2003 Kerkuk had 750.000 inhabitants, today it has over 1.35 million inhabitants, and all the newcomers are Kurds!

Kurds pretend that Kerkuk is “historically Kurdish”!!!  If that is the case, where are their monuments? Where are the historical traces of their presence in Kerkuk?

Many monuments demonstrate the long history of the Turkmens in the north of Iraq, in his book  “The Urban Fabric and Traditional Houses of KERKUK” (see details at the top of the page under “Books“) Dr. Suphi Saatçi documents the contributions made by Turkmens to the field of residential architecture.

Above: Gök Kumbet (photo Karakoyunlu82)

Above: Traditional Turkmen house in Kerkuk Castle (photo by Karakoyunlu82)

Since the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the US-led coalition Kurds have been trying to include oil rich Kerkuk into their Kurdistan region,  they have imposed their hegemony over the entire north of Iraq by force, against the will of the Turkmens who are the second most important ethnic community in the north of Iraq.

It should be noted that the other ethnic groups in the north of Iraq:  the Arabs, the Assyrians, the Shabaks and the Yezidis, also oppose Kurdish hegemony.

Iraq: US raid ‘crime’ that breaks security pact

By BRIAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writer Brian Murphy, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s prime minister denounced a deadly U.S. raid on Sunday as a “crime” that violated the security pact with Washington and demanded American commanders hand over those responsible to face possible trial in Iraqi courts.

 

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