Some Iraqi Turkmen leaders have expressed their desire for the proposed referendum on the future status of the disputed city of Kirkuk to be delayed until a process of normalization is complete.

Below is an article published by Today’s Zaman

After a July 31 deadline for a census expired yesterday [01 August 2007], Iraqi Turkmens revived calls for postponement of a referendum slated for end of this year on the fate of the disputed city of Kirkuk.

Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution stipulates a Dec. 31, 2007 deadline for the Kirkuk referendum -- at the end of a process that includes "normalization," shorthand for reversing the effects of Saddam's policy to drive Kurds out of a string of northern cities and replace them with Arabs.

The constitutional timetable also provided for a census to be completed by the end of July, but neither this nor "normalization" has been implemented.

"There has been no normalization, and the census cannot be carried out, either," said Ahmet Muratlı, Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITC) representative in Ankara, adding: "Under these circumstances, a referendum cannot be carried out."

Ali Mahdi Sadık, who heads the Turkmeneli Party in northern Iraq, said Kirkuk would not be ready for a referendum for the next several years, saying pre-referendum normalization would take a long time to conclude.

"We have been saying this for a year now; the referendum must be postponed for at least a decade," he told CNN Türk. "There are 36,000 cases over land disputes in Kirkuk. So far, we have been unable to resolve even 10 percent of them," he asserted.

Ankara, worried that an influx of Kurdish immigrants into Kirkuk over the past years guaranteed a vote for inclusion of the city in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, calls for delay in the referendum at the end of this year. Turkish officials say Kirkuk, which sits atop 6 percent of the world's known oil reserves, should be given a special status to guarantee that its oil riches will be shared by all Iraqis.

Muratlı also said Kirkuk should be given a special status like Baghdad and Basra in the south. Turkmens are a sizable community in Kirkuk and oppose, along with Arabs, inclusion of the city in the Kurdish region.

Iraqi Kurds, on the other hand, have so far rejected calls for postponement of the referendum and say they are working on preparations for a voting list based on a census held in Iraq in 1957. According to results of that census, Kurds made up 48.3 percent of the Kirkuk area's population and Arabs accounted for 28.2 percent.

The Kurds say the 1957 census was the last reliable count of Kirkuk's population before the Iraqi monarchy was toppled and a succession of governments began manipulating the demographics of the region in favor of Iraqi Arabs.

Analysts have warned that Kirkuk could become the next flashpoint in the strife that has been tearing most of Iraq apart since the 2003 US invasion that removed Saddam Hussein.

"If the referendum is held later this year over the objections of the other (non-Kurdish) communities, the civil war is very likely to spread to Kirkuk and the Kurdish region, until now Iraq's only area of quiet and progress," said a recent analysis of the issue by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.