It’s time Turkey sent in it’s troops to Northern Iraq to protect it’s ethnic cousins, the Turkmens and ensure that this very large group of people receive their due rights.
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wbur/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=537415
Ethnic Tensions Flare in Northern Iraq
Iraqi police patrolled the streets of Kirkuk Sunday after ethnic violence in northern Iraq left several dead, stoking further tension in a country already grappling with lawlessness and a guerrilla insurgency. Clashes between Kurds and Turkmen erupted Friday in the town of Tuz Khurmatu, and unrest spread on Saturday to Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city that is a key oil industry hub. Funerals for some of those killed in the violence were due to be held on Sunday, creating more potential flashpoints. The mayor of Tuz Khurmatu, about 40 miles south of Kirkuk, said the fighting was sparked when Turkmen accused Kurds of desecrating a revered Shi’ite shrine outside the city.
A U.S. Army spokeswoman said Iraqi police killed two people in Tuz Khurmatu Friday while trying to quell the unrest. The American military had previously said it was U.S. troops that fired the shots, but later changed its account of the incident. “The Iraqi police fired warning shots to break up the unrest, but those shots hit two people in the crowd,” said Major Josslyn Aberle of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. Kurdish and Turkmen residents said as many as 15 people were killed in the fighting. Ethnic tensions have long simmered in the area around Kirkuk, where former President Saddam Hussein tried to drive out Kurds and Turkmen to strengthen the Arab population at the site of Iraq’s richest oil reserves. Kirkuk has a U.S.-appointed Kurdish mayor, and many members of the Turkmen minority, who speak Turkish and have close political ties with Turkey, say they want more influence. Turkish newspapers blamed Kurdish “peshmerga” fighters belonging to Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party for the trouble in the Kirkuk region. “Playing with fire,” said a headline in the mass-circulation Hurriyet daily, which said three Turkmen were killed during a protest in Kirkuk at the killing of seven Turkmen in an earlier incident. It said a crowd of some 5,000 had marched through the city, chanting “Kirkuk is Turkish, it will remain Turkish.”