turkmen in iraq and their flight - orsam

TURKMEN IN IRAQ AND THEIR FLIGHT: A DEMOCRAPHIC QUESTION
tors in persuading Iraqis to follow in the footsteps
of their fellow citizens who have migrated
to the popular destinations, such as Western
European countries. Given the current tendencies
towards stricter control of immigration in
Europe and similar efforts to limit and control
flows of immigration by tightening admission
regimes elsewhere, those potential Iraqi migrants
will be left with very few choices. The
literature reveals a variety of clandestine ways
including visa-overstaying, illegal entry, fraudulent
asylum seeking, and so on.
Not surprising but important to note that over
90 percent of asylum applications reported
in table 4 were recorded in Europe. Also one
should remember that the majority of asylum
seeking population remains in the country of
destination even if their applications are refused.
Thus the Iraqi immigrant stock in industrialised
countries is bigger than what is reported
and likely to grow. Undocumented or irregular
immigrants should also be considered when
estimating the total stocks. Referring back to
our concept of environment of human insecurity,
those Iraqis arrived in ‘relative security’ of
Europe are likely to stay longer and even settle
down. This can be interpreted as an indicator
of future migration flows.
The Kirkuk Question and Human Mobility
Kirkuk, the city and the region, has been a key
concern for Iraqi governments and global big
powers and of course for the people who live in
there. For the former, it is mainly about oil reserves
while for the latter it is a key human security
concern. Invasion of Iraq and the ouster of
Saddam Hussein in 2003 escalated the contest
over Kirkuk and made it a crucial issue in need
of an urgent resolution. As Romano (2006) put
it correctly, both Kurds and Turkmen like to
“portray Kirkuk as their “Jerusalem,” implying
a quasi-religious and inalienable attachment
to the city”. For Turkmen, the Kurdish claims
remind Saddam Hussein’s Arabisation policies.
Turkey apparently, in line with her overall Iraq
policy, prefers Kirkuk not to be part of Kurdish
controlled region but stay as an integrated part
of the unified Iraq.
There are various claims about the origins
of Turkmen existence in Kirkuk, and also in
Iraq in general. However, this is again a contested
territory and falls outside the scope of
this study. Rich oil reserves, first discovered in
1927, around Kirkuk is the key reason behind
the dispute and perhaps because of the same
oil reserves the issue will remain unsolved for
a long while. The Kirkuk question here is about
the demography, about the population engineering
witnessed in the area. The cultural and
ethnic mix of Kirkuk is not disputed but the
share of each ethnic group is heavily disputed.
Over the centuries, Oguz Turks, Ottomans,
Assyrians, Arabs, Kurds and Christians have
contributed to this ethnic mix.
Within the ethnic-cleansing and counterinsurgency
policies of Ba’ath Party since 1968,
non-Arab minorities of Kirkuk have been subjected
to heavy handed interventions from
Baghdad. Turkmen have not been involved in
secessionist movements but their Kurdish neighbours
from the North, as they were more
numerous, revolted against Baghdad several times.
Almost after each occasion, Ba’ath regime
responded with tricky and often brutal policies.
Thus over decades, demographic mixture
of Kirkuk has been played around favouring
Arabs, who were largely brought from the South.
Mainly to prevent Kurdish domination and
control, the Iraqi government have changed the
administrative boundaries of the governorate
and named the new governorate “Ta’amim,”
which means “nationalization” in Arabic. Following
the crush of Barzani revolt in 1975, further
Arabization program forced Turkmen and
other minorities out of Kirkuk. Their land was
given to the Arabs, who moved in with hefty
government resettlement grants. Romano
(2004) states that every month about 1000 non-
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