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Iraqi Turkmen
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The Iraqi Turkmens or Iraqi Turks (also spelled Turcomans, Turkomens, and Iraqi Turkmans) are a distinct Turkic ethnic group living mostly in northern Iraq, notably in the cities of Kirkuk, Arbil, Tal Afar, and Mosul. There are also significant numbers of Turkmen in the central provinces of Baghdad, Wasit. However, estimates of their numbers vary dramatically, from 200,000-300,000 by western experts to 3,500,000 by Turkish sources.
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The Iraqi Turkmens or Iraqi Turks (also spelled Turcomans, Turkomens, and Iraqi Turkmans) are a distinct Turkic ethnic group living mostly in northern Iraq, notably in the cities of Kirkuk, Arbil, Tal Afar, and Mosul. There are also significant numbers of Turkmen in the central provinces of Baghdad, Wasit. However, estimates of their numbers vary dramatically, from 200,000-300,000 by western experts to 3,500,000 by Turkish sources. . They have been undergoing decades of assimilation campaigns in Iraq.
The Turkmen of Iraq are not to be confused with the Turkmen of Central Asia who reside primarily in Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Iran. Iraqi Turkmen form a distinct group within the Oghuz Turk classification, which includes Ottoman Turks, modern Turkish people, Azeris, and the Turkmen of Central Asia.
Etymology
The term Turkmen for Iraqi Turks seems to have been created during the course of the discussion on the Mosul issue in the third decade of the last century, in order to isolate the Iraqi Turks from Turkey. This was used as a factor against Turkey during negotiations, in order to join this oil rich Ottoman province to the newly founded Iraq by Britain.
As disturbing the fact is about the term, it has not been completely rejected by the Iraqi Turks, as the "men" in Turkmen means "I" in Turkish, thus making the term mean "I am Turk/Turkish".
The term Turkmen may also refer to Oghuz Turks who migrated to the west, and Muslim Turks which includes Turks of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Balkans, Cypriot and Syria.
Demography
Most of the Western sources indicates that Iraqi Turkmen make up from 1% to less than 5 % of the Iraqi population while Turkmen scholars generally tend to claim higher numbers for their people in Iraq.
The American administration, and the Western world in general, has underestimated the Turkmen presence in Iraq . Orhan Ketene, an ethnic Turkman and the U.S. representative for the Iraqi Turkmen Front, argues that the basis for the erroneous estimates originates from various sources that provide false information regarding the Turkmen population. The United States uses two sources: the CIAs World Fact Book and the Library of Congress. Both sources miscalculate the population of Turkmen in Iraq. They indicate that the Turkmen are less than 5 percent of the population. Ketene argues that both sources represent the information gathered by the Saddam Hussein government, which sought to eradicate the Turkmen presence in this oil-rich and strategic region. Consequently, the American administration in Iraq does not see Turkmen as a significant group in the reconstruction process. Iraqi Turkmen Front also argues that the American government should implement a comprehensive study on the demography of Iraq, in order to ensure a better position in the conflict. However, ITF, the political party which claims to represent Turkmen minority in Iraq usually gains from 0.7% to 1.11% of votes throughout Iraq .
Language
The Iraqi Turkmen speak a dialect of Turkish that is heavily influenced by Arabic and Ottoman Turkish. Ethnologue and Linguasphere classify their spoken language as a form and a mix of South Azerbaijani and Urfa dialect. For their written language, they use the standard Turkish language and Latin-based Turkish alphabet. Like Turkey, they have been using as a modified version of Arabic alphabet in the past.
Religion
The majority of Turkmen are Muslims, but there are also about 30,000 Christian catholic Turks living in Iraq. Turkmen Jews supposedly left for Israel when the state was established.
Iraqi Turkmen are split between Sunni and Shia Islam by faith. There is no difference at all between the Sunni and Shiite Turkmen in the dialogue, language or culture. Intermarriage between the Shiite and Sunni Turkmen is very common.
According to Talip Büyük, Shiites are 65% of the population and Sunnis make up the rest. Juan Cole says that they practice a ghulat form of Shiism (cf. Turkey's Alevis).
History
The origin of the Iraqi Turkmen dates back to the Al-Ma'mun and Al-Mu'tasim rules of Abbasid in 9th century.
Most of the Turkmen living in the region settled in northern Iraq during the early Seljuk Empire period, when Turks migrated from Central Asia (Turkestan) to Anatolia, Iran and Iraq. A recent addition to this population was made by the Ottoman Empire who brought Turks from Anatolia to the region to secure and transport mail from Baghdad to Istanbul and vice versa in the 18th century. Others were sent to the region by the Ottomans to repel tribal raids. These groups settled at the entrances of the valleys that gave them access to Kurdish-dominated areas. This historic role of pacification has led to the development of strained relations between the Turkmen and the Kurds. With the rise of Saddam Hussein and Ba'ath domination over Iraq, a policy of Arabization was imposed on the Turkmen and the rest of Iraq's non-Arab minorities. It was declared in the constitution that schools were prohibited from using the Turkish language and banned Turkish-language media in Iraq. In the 1980s, Saddam prohibited the public use of the Turkish language completely.
The Turkmen of Iraq live mainly in the north and middle of the country; according to them, their number is severely underestimated, and approximates at least 2.5 million. The Turkmen of Iraq constitute generations of different Turkish clans who entered the area that is now modern day Iraq over thousands of years, for example, Oghus, Kipchak, Azerbaijanian and Mongols.
Assimilation Campaigns
Iraqi Turkmen suffered from various degrees of suppression and assimilation that ranged from political persecution and exile to terror, massacres and ethnic cleansing.
During the British and monarchy era, despite 1925 constitution and 1932 League of Nations declaration, cultural rights were gradually taken away, activists were sent to exile.
Arab tribes were settled west of Kerkuk. During the early republican era, Communist and separatist groups committed the Kerkuk Massacre of July 14.th, 1959 which aimed at terrorizing and ethnically cleansing the Turkmens from the city.
During the Baathist era, the Iraqi administration granted some cultural rights to the Turkmen on January 24.th, 1970, including education in the Turkish language in primary schools, daily radio broadcasting for two hours and TV broadcasting for half an hour in the Turkish language, these rights were gradually taken away by the authorities and by 1972, all Turkish schools were closed.
The assimilation of the Turkmen already became a state policy in 1971 when the General Assembly of the Baath Party decided to complete the Arabization of Kirkuk by 1980. Administrative boundaries were changed in 1974 to divide Turkmen concentrations. Since the mid 70s, Arabs enjoyed special incentives and rights encouraging them to move to historically Turkmen areas including the oil-rich city of Kerkuk. In the latter half of the 1970s, the names of several villages and places.
Present status
Although some have been able to preserve their language, the Iraqi Turkmen today are being rapidly assimilated into the general population and are no longer tribally organized. With the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, tensions between the Kurds and the Turkmen grew substantially. As a result, Kirkuk soon became the only violent non-Arab city in Iraq during the Iraq War.
Iraqi Turkmen have also emerged as a key political force in the controversy over the future status of northern Iraq and the Kurdish Autonomous Region. The government of Turkey has helped fund such political organizations as the Iraqi Turkmen Front, which opposes Iraqi federalism and in particular the proposed annexation of Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Tensions between the two groups over Kirkuk, however, have slowly died out and on January 30, 2006, the President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, said that the "Kurds are working on a plan to give Iraqi Turkmen autonomy in areas where they are a majority in the new constitution they're drafting for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq."
However, it never happened and the policies of Kurdification by KDP and PUK after 2003 (with non-Kurds being pressures to move) have prompted serious inter-ethnic problems.
Between ten and twelve Turkmen individuals were elected to the transitional National Assembly of Iraq in January 2005, including five on the United Iraqi Alliance list, three from the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), and either two or four from the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan.
In the December 2005 elections, between five and seven Turkmen candidates were elected to the Council of Representatives. This included one candidate from the ITF (its leader Sadettin Ergec), two or four from the United Iraqi Alliance, one from the Iraqi Accord Front and one from the Kurdistani Alliance.
Notable Iraqi Turks
See also
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