Hundreds of Iraqi Arabs demonstrated Tuesday in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, against turning the Kirkuk province into part of Iraqi Kurdistan. The demonstrators warned they would rather die than give up Kirkuk.
The protestors sent a letter to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki threatening to turn to violence in order to "protect Kirkuk’s Arabness," the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-‘Arabi reported.
The oil-rich Kirkuk province located north of Baghdad lies at the center of what might turn into a bloody conflict between Kurds and Arabs in Iraq.
According to the 2005 constitution, a referendum was supposed to take place in Kirkuk during 2007 to decide whether the province would be included in a semi-autonomous region controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
Meanwhile, 30 Iraqis, most of whom were Arabs, were killed in a suicide attack in Jaloula, according to the London-based daily Al-Hayyat. The attack was executed near a police station in the city, located north east of Baghdad.
Although the suicide bomber has not yet been identified, the attack was linked in the local press to the recent tension in the area between the Kurdish Peshmerga (KRG’s security forces) and the Iraqi army.
Since the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, the Peshmerga forces have deployed in Khanaqin, a few miles north-west of Jaloula.
Last week, the Iraqi army gave the Peshmerga brigade in Khanaqin an order to evacuate its forces within 24 hours. The brigade refused to do so, and a few days later the Iraqi army withdrew its own forces from the city.
The Iraqi parliament still has to decide how to solve the Kirkuk crisis, which is delaying the passing of the local elections law.