ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The official appointment of a director for Kirkuk’s agriculture department has reignited long-standing land disputes in the province, with Kurdish and Turkmen farmers accusing the department of renewing dozens of agricultural land contracts for Arab settlers at the expense of original landowners who hold court-recognized title deeds.
On Wednesday, the Kirkuk provincial council unanimously re-appointed Issam Sulaiman as director of agriculture. Farmers point out that the director renewed around 70 land ownership contracts for Arab settlers even before officially taking office.
“Since this director took office, we have had many problems with him,” Sami Ghafur, a representative of Kurdish farmers in Topzawa village in the central administrative district of Kirkuk province, told Rudaw on Thursday, adding that “all of our lands are still burdened by Baath-era contracts.”
Salman Ali, a Turkman farmer from Taza subdistrict, questioned the legality of the contract renewals. “I have come to file a complaint,” he told Rudaw at the Kirkuk agriculture directorate. “How can a contract be renewed while the land is physically in my possession?”
Land disputes between Arab settlers and Kurdish farmers in Kirkuk date back to Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime. In 1975, several Kurdish villages were declared prohibited oil zones, and residents were stripped of their land rights. By 1977, the Baath Supreme Revolutionary Court redistributed those lands to Arab settlers under agricultural contracts.
After the regime’s fall in 2003, Iraq adopted Article 140 of the Constitution to reverse such demographic manipulations. However, implementation of the constitution and laws aimed at reversing Baath-era policies has stalled.
In January, Iraq’s parliament passed a land restitution law to return property confiscated from Kurds and Turkmen during the Baath era.