The head of the Bureau of Information and Awareness of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has called for the suspension of the national census, calling it a "very important and decisive task" because he believes it will be a disaster for Article 140 of Iraqi constitution.
Imad Ahmad, member of the Political Bureau of the PUK, in an article published on his party's official website criticized the Iraqi government and called for suspension of the census.
"The cabinet of Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Sudani wants to conduct a nationwide census for hidden purposes. It will be a disaster for the Kurdish population in Iraq and for Article 140 of the constitution and for the Kurdistan Region."
Mohammed Shia Sudani's cabinet wants to conduct a nationwide census in the federal government for the hidden purpose of the prime minister
Local officials in charge of the census deny conducting the census as part of article 140 of the Iraqi constitution to determine the destiny of the disputed territories or get data about ethnic and religious communities in Iraq.
"This census has nothing to do with Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, unless the Council of Ministers and the Federal Court notify us in special circumstances that it will be similar to the same census referred to in Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution," Hussein Hamid, the supervisor of the Kirkuk statistics board, told KirkukNow last month.
"But we emphasize once again that this census has nothing to do with the census referred to in Article 140, because it does not include a field about nationality," he added.
Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which deals with the determination of ownership of the disputed territories, states that a general census should be conducted in the second phase following normalization, followed by the third and final phase of the referendum to resolve the issue.
However, the first phase of the article, compensation and normalization, has not yet been completed, although all three phases should have been completed by the end of 2007.
The general census is scheduled to be conducted on November 20 across Iraq, including the Kurdistan Region, the first census in Iraq since 1997.
“The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) should fulfill its historical responsibility and try to resolve the issue peacefully, away from political conflict and private and party interests and save the Kurds from another mess.”
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) should fulfill its historical responsibility and try to resolve the issue peacefully
Fahmi Burhan, the head of the Kurdistan Regional Government's General Board, has repeatedly called the census in the conflict areas dangerous, but considered the removal of the ethnicity clause an important point to prevent the census from being taken in another direction.
"The purpose of this census is to know the distribution of the population... Through the census we will better understand which areas need how much water, electricity, schools and other services," Hamid said.
In another part of his speech, Ahmad believes that the suspension of the census "is a very important and decisive task," adding that "all Kurdish political parties without discrimination, should stop the census and postpone it for another time.”
