almotamar.net google - BAGHDAD � Iraq's government has endorsed plans to relocate thousands of Arabs who were moved to Kirkuk as part of Saddam Hussein's campaign to force ethnic Kurds out of the oil-rich city, in an effort to undo one of Saddam's most enduring and hated policies.
The contentious decision on Kirkuk was confirmed Saturday by Iraq's Sunni justice minister as he said he was resigning. Almost immediately, opposition politicians said they feared it would harden the violent divisions among Iraq's fractious ethnic and religious groups and possibly lead to an Iraq divided among Kurds, Sunni Arabs and Shiites.
The plan was virtually certain to anger neighboring Turkey, which fears a northward migration of Iraqi Kurds will inflame its own restive Kurdish minority.
The ancient city of Kirkuk has a large minority of ethnic Turks as well as Christians, Shiite and Sunni Arabs, Armenians and Assyrians. The city is near the Kurdish autonomous zone stretching across three provinces of northeastern Iraq.
Deadline set
Iraq's constitution sets an end-of-the-year deadline for a referendum on Kirkuk's status. Since Saddam's fall four years ago, thousands of Kurds who once lived in the city have resettled there. It is now believed Kurds are a majority of the population and that a referendum on attaching Kirkuk to the Kurdish autonomous zone would pass easily.
Justice Minister Hashim al-Shebli said the Cabinet agreed Thursday to a study group's recommendation that Arabs who had moved to Kirkuk from other parts of Iraq after July 1968 should be returned and paid compensation.
Iraq developments


U.S. toll: Associated Press figures showed that the U.S. military death toll in March, the first full month of a new security crackdown, was nearly twice that of the Iraqi army, which U.S. and Iraqi officials say is taking the leading role in the latest attempt to curb violence in the capital. The AP count of U.S. military deaths for the month was 81, including a soldier who died from noncombat causes Friday. Figures compiled from officials in the Iraqi ministries of defense, health and interior showed the Iraqi military toll was 44. The Iraqi figures showed that 165 Iraqi police were killed last month.
Tal Afar toll rises: The Interior Ministry, meanwhile, raised the death toll in Tuesday's suicide truck bombing of a Shiite market in Tal Afar to 152, which would make it the deadliest single strike since the war started four years ago. A ministry spokesman said the toll nearly doubled from 83 after more bodies were pulled from the rubble.
Iraqi deaths: At least 38 people were killed or found dead Saturday in series of bombings and attacks across Iraq.
The Associated Press
Al-Shebli, who had overseen the committee on Kirkuk's status, said relocation would be voluntary. Those who choose to leave will be paid about $15,000 and given land in their former hometowns.
"There will be no coercion and the decision will not be implemented by force," he said.
Tens of thousands of Kurds and non-Arabs fled Kirkuk in the 1980s and 1990s when Saddam's government implemented its "Arabization" policy. Kurds and non-Arabs were replaced with pro-government Arabs from the mainly Shiite impoverished south.
After the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Kurds and other non-Arabs streamed back, only to find their homes were either sold or given to Arabs. Some of the returning Kurds found nowhere to live except in parks and abandoned government buildings. Others drove Arabs from the city, despite pleas from Sunni and Shiite leaders for them to stay.
Land offered
Adil Abdul-Hussein Alami, a 62-year-old Shiite who moved to Kirkuk 23 years ago in return for $1,000 and a free piece of land, said he would find it hard to leave.
"Kirkuk is an Iraqi city and I'm Iraqi," said the father of nine. "We came here as one family and now we are four. Our blood is mixed with Kurds and Turkmen."
But Ahmed Salih Zowbaa, a 52-year-old Shiite father of six who moved to the city from Kufa in 1987, agreed with the government's decision. "We gave our votes to this government and constitution and as long as the government will compensate us, then there is no injustice at all," he said.
Al-Shebli, a Sunni Arab, confirmed he had offered his resignation the same day that the Cabinet approved the plan.
He cited differences with the government and his own political group, the secular Iraqi List, which joined Sunni Arab lawmakers Saturday in opposing the Kirkuk decision.
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