Support the Ethnic and Geographic Federal System in Iraq as Submitted by Kurdish members of the Iraq

Support Kurdistan as a federal state within Iraq based on the ethnic and geographic composition including the cities of Kirkuk, Duhok, Khanaqin, Mandali, and the Kurdish areas and provinces of Mosul, Sinjar. Geographic federalism is the logical political solution for Iraq. It will ensure stability, viability, Iraq’s sovereignty and will protect the rights of all Iraq’s ethnic groups. Support the Transitional Laws submitted by the five Kurdish members of the Iraqi Governing Council. Geographic federalism was voted and endorsed by the Kurdistan Parliament.

Since the inception of modern day Iraq in 1923 the Kurds were annexed unwillingly with the understanding that the Kurdish population in Iraq are to have legal and equal rights including special ethnic and religious rights. The 1970 autonomy agreement with the government of Iraq was based on the geographic boundaries of Kurdish land. During the last 35 years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, his regime pursued the policy of Arabization, Anfal, ethnic cleansing and genocide against all Kurds including Kirkuk. Chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government with direct orders from Saddam Hussein against Kurdish civilians in many villages in Iraqi Kurdistan. Halabja became known to the world when in one raid 5,000 men, women and children were gazed and died as a result. The environmental impact on the region is rampant. The Anfal genocide campaign of the 1980s against the Kurdish population razed to the ground over 5,000 ancestral villages and rendered over 300,000 victims. Remnants of their bodies were found in mass graves. Saddam Hussein ordered the ethnic cleansing of Kirkuk forcing over 200,000 Kurdish families out of Kirkuk and resettled Arabs from the South in their places. Despite Saddam’s efforts to displace Kurds and Arabize Kirkuk through out his rule, Kirkuk still consists mainly of Kurds. In addition to Kurds, Kirkuk has a population of Arabs, Turkmans, and Assyrians/Chaldean Christians.

Iraqis realize that Kirkuk belongs geographically to Iraqi-Kurdistan. However, Kurds are content and ready to share the governing role of the city with other ethnic groups such as Arabs, Turkmans, and Assyrians/Chaldeans. The Kurdish people are claiming Kirkuk to be a part of Kurdistan, because the city is rich with Kurdish history and the geographical borders are within Kurdistan. The proposed Kurdish Federal Region must include the four major Kurdish cities, Duhok, Erbil, Sulaimanya, Kirkuk, as well as the Kurdish areas in the provinces of Mosul, Sinjar, Khanaqin and Diyala.