Oil-rich Iraqi town poised to become new arena of conflict

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=96345

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Amal Jayasinghe

Agence France Presse

KHANAQIN, Iraq: A mirror image of Kirkuk, the Kurdish town of Khanaqin, near the border with Iran, that holds sizeable oil reserves is being exposed to ethnic tensions and rival territorial claims. Local Kurdish political leaders warn that the area could see an explosion in ethnic violence, as they call for Khanaqin to join the adjoining autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of northern Iraq.

"What we are telling the government is simple. Implement the constitutional provision for a referendum for people in Khanaqin to decide their future," said Mala Bakhtyar, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Kurdish political party of Iraq's President Jalal Talabani.
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However, Khanaqin itself has no Iraqi forces. Iraq's flag is flown by the Kurdish peshmerga fighters alongside their own flags at checkpoints and outside mini-camps.

All government buildings and private homes fly the Kurdish flag. The Kurdish tricolor - red, green and white, with a rising star in the middle - is also seen outside most homes along the main highway to Khanaqin.

Talks are under way between the PUK, a key coalition partner in the KRG, and the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to end the simmering tension between federal forces and Kurdish peshmerga troops.

The Kurds in Khanaqin are mainly Shiite Muslims.

A peshmerga field commander, Bakhtyar, led Kurdish fighters to take control over this town after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
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The stakes in Khanaqin have risen because of high world oil prices. The town's mayor, Mohammad Mala Hassan, 52, said he was "sitting on an ocean of oil, but unable to get anything out of it. I don't have any money for work here."

Hassan, who drives his own pick-up truck accompanied by heavily-armed peshmerga and with a pistol at his waist, said the region could see violence if Iraqi authorities resist a move by Khanaqin to join Kurdistan.

He said one of Iraq's first oil wells was located in his town after the discovery of black gold in Iraq in 1927. "We don't have a refinery here. We had 35 oil wells before they were closed down by Saddam," he said.

Asked if there was a peaceful way to resolve ethnic tensions and exploit the vast oil wealth, Hassan said: "Yes. Hold the referendum. That is the only way."