The Iraqi mess is getting murkier. Civil war now threatens to engulf north Iraq as Arab Sunni militants are pushing out Kurds from the city of Mosul. They are already sore after losing power with the fall of Saddam Hussain. They resent the presence of Kurds in Mosul as they feel it is their city. Kurdish presence has been already wiped out from western Mosul by the coercive tactics of the militants.
Thay are further angry over the fact that the Nineveh provincial assembly has Kurds occupying 31 of the 41 seats with just a 35% share of the population. Entirely their fault as they had stayed away from the elections in 2005. Most Kurds are of the Sunni sect, but they have little in common with the Arabs.
Also the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region is pushing to occupy tracts of the province. The parts of the province that Iraqi Kurdistan wants are called the “disputed territories” along its border, areas that were historically Kurdish until Saddam Hussein moved in Arabs and forced out half a million Kurds to strengthen Arab presence. Moreover the constitution, in the framing of which Kurds played a leading role, allows for taking over of these parts after a referendum. Going by numbers six of the nine districts of Nineveh will vote in favor of it .
But before that the Iraqi government will have to move out the Arabs and shift back the Kurds. Or else the fighting between them will only get bloodier.
Kurdish leaders are urging Kurds to settle in eastern Mosul, as is happening in the disputed areas in Kirkuk and Diyala province.
The situation is getting tense by the day. All it will take to start a Sunni-Kurd war is a little spark .
As Goran , the deputy governor of Nineveh says,
This is a good time to solve the problem . Because if not, we will open another front in the north between Kurds and Arabs
Source: NYT
