Kirkuk joins the “Turkish world” and Erdogan’s deputy considers it “the homeland of the Turkmen”
Kirkuk joins the “Turkish world” and Erdogan’s deputy considers it “the homeland of the Turkmen”
2026-08-01
Shafaq News – Kirkuk
The deputy chairman of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, Kürşad Zorlu, announced that Kirkuk province has officially joined the “Union of Turkish World Municipalities” during a meeting held by the union in the Turkish city of Karaman.
Zorlu said that Kirkuk’s membership was definitively approved during the meeting held yesterday, Friday, considering that the step will open the way for expanding cooperation between the governorate and the municipalities of the Turkish states in a number of service and economic fields.
Zorlu described Kirkuk as “the home of the Turkmen,” and said that its joining the union sends a message to the Turkish municipalities that withdrew from the organization for political reasons, stressing that the union continued its activity during the past years despite the challenges it faced.
The Turkish official pointed out that the “Development Road” project, which extends through the Ovakoy border crossing towards Türkiye and Europe, represents one of the most prominent axes of economic cooperation between Ankara and Baghdad.
He also pointed to the importance of the Turkish Petroleum Company’s participation in the Kirkuk oil production fields, considering that these projects could contribute to strengthening economic relations between Iraq and Turkey.
The Union of Turkic World Municipalities is an organization that includes municipalities and local administrations from Türkiye and a number of countries and regions with Turkish ties, and focuses on exchanging experiences and implementing joint projects among its members.
Kirkuk is one of the most diverse and sensitive cities in terms of nationality and politics, as it includes Kurdish, Turkmen and Arab components, in addition to Chaldeans, Assyrians and other components.
The Kurds view Kirkuk as a historical part of Kurdistan, and their leaders often describe it as the “heart of Kurdistan” or the “Jerusalem of Kurdistan,” demanding its annexation to the Kurdistan Region according to constitutional mechanisms. In contrast, the Turkmen consider the city a major historical center of their presence in Iraq, while the Arab forces affirm Kirkuk’s Iraqi identity and reject its annexation to the region.
Kirkuk and other areas, particularly since the 1970s, were subjected to Arabization policies implemented by the Ba’athist regime with the aim of altering the demographic makeup and consolidating the central government’s control over the oil-rich region. These policies included the displacement of large numbers of Kurds, the confiscation of their property, and the resettlement of Arab families from central and southern Iraqi provinces.
After the fall of the previous regime in 2003, Kirkuk became at the forefront of what is constitutionally known as the “disputed territories” between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government. Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution stipulated the completion of normalization procedures, followed by a population census, followed by a referendum to determine the will of the residents of Kirkuk and other disputed territories. These stages were supposed to be completed by the end of 2007 at the latest, but the article has not been implemented yet.
shafaq.com
