Iraqi MPs demand protection for Turkmen parts of Kirkuk

Two Turkmen members of Iraq’s parliament on Monday called on the Iraqi Interior Ministry to provide protection to Turkmen areas of the northern Kirkuk province.

“The former regime [of Saddam Hussein] seized Turkmen land in Kirkuk, Bashir, Al-Tuz and in other areas,” MP Hasan Turan said at a joint press conference in Baghdad held with fellow MP Arshad al-Salihi.

Without elaborating, Turan merely said that the land in question had been confiscated by “gangs belonging to the same ethnicity”.

He went on to demand that Iraq’s Interior Ministry send forces to Kirkuk to protect Turkmen areas from what he described as “organized gangs”.

Long the subject of dispute between Baghdad and northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government, the oil-rich Kirkuk province is home to Turkmen, Kurds and Arabs.