Baghdad asked for $600M for resettlements

BAGHDAD, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- An Iraqi committee tasked with reversing the demographic effects of ethnic cleansing requested $600 million from Baghdad Wednesday to help with resettlement.

Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution calls for a reversal of the policy of "Arabization" of the northern Kurdish areas of Iraq enacted by the former dictator Saddam Hussein.

The Baathist regime in the late 1980s drove Assyrian, Kurdish and Turkomen families out of Kirkuk in an effort to transform the demographics in the oil-rich region to an Arab population. Article 140 seeks to determine if enough of the native population has returned north for the area to be considered Kurdish.

Tahsin Kahiya, who serves on a council overseeing the implementation of Article 140, said the Iraqi government has not spent the appropriate funds available in the budget for compensating families who have returned north, the media division of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said.

"Our committee in the next three years will need $600 million for compensating returnees and Arab settlers in Kirkuk province," he said.

Article 140 is a contentious matter for Shiite and Sunni Muslims, as well as Iraqi Turkomen, who opposed Kurdish proposals to incorporate Kirkuk into the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan.