ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Settler families in Kirkuk, who are eligible for constitutionally mandated compensation for leaving the province and returning to their areas of origin, risk losing this financial entitlement if they fail to complete their paperwork within ten days, a Kurdish official said Monday.
“Arab settler families currently residing in Kirkuk will lose their eligibility for compensation if they fail to complete their paperwork by the given deadline,” Kaka Rash Siddiq, head of Kirkuk's office for the implementation of Article 140, told Rudaw, referring to a ten-day deadline given to the families.
Kirkuk, along with other disputed territories like Diyala, Nineveh, and Salahaddin, has a diverse population and was subject to Arabization policies under Saddam Hussein’s rule, where Kurdish inhabitants were displaced and their lands given to Arab settlers. Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution outlines a process for resolving disputes over these territories. It begins with compensation for Arab settlers to return to their place of origin and restoring lands to displaced Kurdish landowners.
In August. Saddiq said thousands of Arabs who had received financial and land compensation from the Iraqi government chose to remain in the province. He blamed the previous provincial administration, which he said supported the Arab population who stayed despite being compensated.
Kirkuk’s Kurdish population is believed to have significantly decreased after the Baath regime's decades-long Arabization process and the ousting of the Peshmerga from the province in October 2017 after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held an independence referendum and included disputed areas then under its control.
In September, Karwan Adil Kamarkhan, head of the Kirkuk office of the KRG’s board for disputed territories, stated that around 300,000 Arabs and Turkmen have settled in the province since 2017.
Many Kurds returned to their hometown of Kirkuk to be registered as residents of the province during last week's nationwide population census, following calls from Kurdish officials.
Hastyar Qadir contributed to this report.
