The Iraqi Council of Ministers has decided to conduct a joint team of all ethnicities to conduct November 20 census in the disputed territories, a presidential advisor said.
The Iraqi Council of Ministers on Tuesday November 5 issued seven decisions on the issue of the general population census, emphasizing the conduct of the census on November 20 as the first point of the decisions.
The second point emphasizes that in the disputed territories, a joint team of the three ethnic groups (Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen) will work together, with a Christian included in the team in areas where the majority are Christians.
Hawre Tofiq, an advisor to the Iraqi president, told the media that this is to ensure that the data is entered jointly, without modification, and correctly, with the knowledge of the ethnicities of these areas.
According to the decisions of the Council of Ministers, the two statistical boards of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq KRI and Iraq, with the assistance of the Federal Ministry of Interior, will compare the data tables of the ministries with the results of the 1957 census.
Tofiq stressed that this is to prevent people from outside Kirkuk and other disputed territories that are not registered in the 1957 census from being included in this census on these areas so as not to affect the demographics of these areas.
According to the fourth point of the decisions, the results of the general census and the data of the census will be compared with the records entered in paragraph three.
"This will be done by both the Federal Ministry of Planning and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)."
According to the joint agreement, a list of areas containing the results of the data comparison will be prepared, and both planning ministries in Baghdad and Erbil will each receive a copy of the record.
A technical team of the Kurdistan Regional Statistical Board will participate in the main room of census operations to monitor the conduct of the census process and ensure the safety of the procedures on a permanent basis until the completion of the process.
The decisions came after a meeting between the Iraqi president and prime minister on October 31 on the issue of the census and presenting several comments and suggestions. The meeting was attended by a number of ministers from both the Iraqi and Kurdistan Regional Governments.
According to a statement issued by the Iraqi presidency, the meeting stressed the need to conduct the census on time, with support for the Ministry of Planning and providing all tools to ensure the success of the census process and the importance of following the highest standards of professionalism and transparency.
Before the meeting and the decisions of the Iraqi government, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) called for the suspension of the nationwide census through a letter from Imad Ahmad, a member of the PUK Political Bureau.
"The cabinet of Mohammed Shia Sudani wants to conduct a nationwide census in federal Iraq for hidden purposes," Ahmad said in a statement posted on his party's official website. "It will be a disaster for the Kurdish population in Iraq."
Similarly, the KRG has repeatedly shown its concerns and fear of using the census within the framework of implementing Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, despite insurance by local officials that census is not part of the article 140 of the Iraqi consitituion.
"This census has nothing to do with Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution unless the Council of Ministers and the Federal Court are notified in special circumstances," 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 of the Iraqi constitution because it does not include the ethnicity field," 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 before 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 KRG Statistical Board on Wednesday launched an application form for census workers on its website, saying it needs 15,000 applicants.
