Thousands of Iraqi Arabs have accepted financial compensation to leave the northern city of Kirkuk, which leaders of the autonomous Kurdish region are seeking to control, a minister said Thursday. Around 2,000 Arabs living there had agreed to return to their home provinces under an initiative launched by the committee in charge of overseeing relations in Kirkuk, Environment Minister Nermeen Othman said. “The supreme committee finished approving 2,000 applications submitted by Arab residents in Kirkuk who want to receive compensation of 15,000 dollars to return to their original residence places,” she told AFP.
Technical problems related to changing ID registers had prevented the payment of cheques so far, but the applicants had been approved and would be paid in the next few days, she said. According to Othman, herself a Kurd, a budget of 200 million dollars has been allocated by the Iraq government to pay the compensation packages of those willing to leave the city. Tensions between KirkukÂ’s Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen communities have risen ahead of a constitutionally mandated popular referendum on the oil-rich cityÂ’s future, which is supposed to be held this year. |