“The census in Kirkuk would be a complicated operation. Last year, Arabs and Turkmen submitted a memo to the planning minister that we refuse to have this census now due to the displacement of a large number of families outside the province,” Muhammad Khidr, a member of the Arab bloc in the Kirkuk Provincial Council, told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.

“If this census took place, it would offer legitimacy for all those who encroached on public and private property and consequently Kirkuk would be in an unenviable position,” added Khidr.

He said Arabs demand that the issue of Kirkuk be settled and only then a census can be conducted.

Torhan al-Mufti, a member of the Turkmen List in the Kirkuk Provincial Council, told Aswat al-Iraq that the Turkmen refuse census, not out of certain ethnic reasons, but for Iraq’s public interests.

“There are excesses still and unexpected increase in demographic rates all over Iraq, not just Kirkuk,” said Mufti.

“Add to this the addition of the paragraph that has to do with ethnicities that could lead to more splits in Iraq, let alone the problem of Kirkuk in the framework of what is known as the disputed areas,” he noted.

Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution is related to the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk city and other disputed areas.

Kurds seek to include the city in the autonomous Iraq’s Kurdistan region, while Sunni Muslims, Turkmen and Shiites oppose the incorporation. The article currently stipulates that all Arabs in Kirkuk be returned to their original locations in southern and central Iraqi areas, and formerly displaced residents returned to Kirkuk, 250 km northeast of Baghdad.

The article also calls for conducting a census to be followed by a referendum to let the inhabitants decide whether they would like Kirkuk to be annexed to the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan region or having it as an independent province.

These stages were supposed to end on December 31, 2007, a deadline that was later extended to six months to end in July 2008.

Kirkuk city is historically a Kurdish city and it lies just south border of the Kurdistan autonomous region, the population is a mix of majority Kurds and minority of Arabs, Christians and Turkmen, lies 250 km northeast of Baghdad. Kurds have a strong cultural and emotional attachment to Kirkuk, which they call “the Kurdish Jerusalem.” Kurds see it as the rightful and perfect capital of an autonomous Kurdistan state.

Azad al-Jabbari, a member of the Kurdish Fraternal List in the Kirkuk Provincial Council, told Aswat al-Iraq that census is necessary for any civilized nation, adding a census has to be launched in Kirkuk in order to eliminate some of the problems related to this issue.

“There are a lot of problems hindered by lack of census including the budget, projects, expansions in the city and basic needs like water and electricity,” he said.