KIRKUK, Iraq, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Hundreds of Arabs and ethnic Turkmen protested in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk against a decision to "repatriate" them to their original hometowns.
The demonstrators demanded a reversal to a decision by the "normalization of the status of Kirkuk committee" to return the Arabs of the city to their original hometowns in central and southern Iraq, in exchange for a piece of land and 20 million Iraqi dinars (about $15,000) for each family.
They also demanded the Iraqi government refrain from implementing Article 140 of the new constitution that calls for "normalizing the status" of Kirkuk. The article threatens the expulsion of some 7,000 Arab families from the oil-rich city ahead of a referendum determining whether Kirkuk should be annexed to the three autonomous northern Kurdish provinces.
The status of Kirkuk, disputed by the Arabs, ethnic Turkmen and Kurds, is seen as one of the most explosive issues facing the central government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Iraq's future.
Annexing the city to Kurdistan might spark a civil war among the three ethnic groups that threatens intervention by Iraq's northern neighbor, Turkey, to protect the ethnic Turkmen.
Its annexation also jeopardizes the entire territorial unity of an already war-torn Iraq, dividing the country into three parts: the north for the Kurds, the oil-rich south for the Shiites and the dry center for the Arab Sunnis.
