Word: arabization
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...ground level, the market smells of bird droppings and open drains, and the mood is murkier. An Arab vendor of pomegranates loudly endorses my escort's claim that Kirkuk is a microcosm of an ideal Iraq. But when the policeman wanders out of earshot, he hisses, "Don't believe that Kurd. His people want Kirkuk for themselves. When the Americans leave, they will drive us out." (See pictures of U.S. troops' 5 years in Iraq...
...Kurds have frequently warned that there may be civil war if they don't get their way; there will be if they do, say the Turkomans and Arabs. The closest the communities have come to battle was in late July: after a suicide bomber struck at a Kurdish demonstration, killing 25, Kurds turned their wrath on Turkomans, though the violence quickly subsided. Since then, a war of words has broken out. Arab politicians in Baghdad were enraged when the provincial government of Kurdistan struck deals with oil companies without consulting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government; this was seen...
...decide the city's future? The last official census was in 1957, when the Turkomans had a slight edge over the Kurds, 40% to 35%. In the 1970s, Saddam Hussein sought to reorder the city's demographics by driving out some Kurds and Turkomans and busing up thousands of Arab families from the south. (See pictures of life returning to Iraq's streets...
Iraq's U.S.-appointed administrator, L. Paul Bremer, demurred, though he gave Kurds key political appointments. On my next visit two years later, Arab neighborhoods were being depleted as the Kurds sought to drive out Saddam's supporters. Turkomans and Arabs remained adamant that many of the Kurdish newcomers were not Kirkuk natives but had been sent to try to secure a majority before a new census and hence win a referendum, mandated by the new Iraqi constitution, on the city's future...
...Zogby President of the Arab-American Institute...