Despite the ongoing violence in Iraq, tens of thousands of people rushed into the streets across the country, including in the northern city of Erbil, last Sunday, raising Iraqi flags in celebration of the qualification of the Iraqi under-20 football team to the semi-finals of the World Cup. Over the last decade, football has managed to unify the Iraqi people, regardless of ethnic, religious and sectarian divisions. Sunday was also a special day in Baghdad since Masoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, was visiting the capital for the first time in years for talks with Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki. The two men held a joint press conference after the meeting, and both smiled as if they had broken the ice that has frozen relations between the centre and the Kurdish region for years. “We discussed the disputes between us and agreed to work on passing the laws that have been frozen in parliament, especially the oil and gas law,” Al-Maliki said, referring to long-stalled legislation governing the exploitation of Iraq's rich energy resources. “We agreed to cooperate and work together and to face everything that threatens Iraq and the Kurdish region. We consider this to be a national duty,” Barzani said, who nevertheless did not answer a question regarding his criticisms of Baghdad's buying military equipment and war planes for the country's military. Both Al-Maliki and Barzani committed themselves to protecting Iraq from the ongoing unrest in the surrounding region, especially in Syria, and both said that only the Syrian people could decide the future of their country. However, for many Iraqis the politicians' upbeat assessment was hard to swallow, not least because of the violence that is currently affecting the country. According to the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), June was another bloody month for Iraq, with 761 people killed and 1,771 wounded in attacks across the country. Baghdad was at the top of the list of human causalities, with 258 killed and 692 wounded. The Turkmens, recognised by the Iraqi parliament as the third largest ethnic group in Iraq, have become the daily targets of violence over the last two years, especially in Tuz Khurmatu 200km north of Baghdad, which is administered by the Salaheddin province. The latest attack by two suicide bombers took place against Turkmen protesters on 25 June who were blocking the main road linking north to south Iraq. Earlier on 23 June, two car bombs attacked Turkmen neighbourhoods in Tuz Khurmatu (Aksu and Jakala), and dozens of people were killed or wounded and more than 20 houses were totally destroyed. For more than two years, the Turkmens have been demanding the establishment of Turkmen forces within the official Iraqi security forces in order to help protect their community after the existing security forces have failed in this task. In protest at the 23 June attack, the Turkmens decided to hold protests and sit-ins, blocking the main highway linking the north and south of the country. The 25 June attack killed Ali Hashim Muhtar Oglu, vice-president of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), the largest Turkmen political party, and Ahmed Koja, a leading ITF politician and assistant to the Salahaddin governor. Arshad Salihi, the ITF president and a member of the Iraqi parliament, said in a press conference that the daily attacks against the Turkmens had been aimed at trying to terrorise them and force them to leave their lands. Many other Turkmen politicians, among them Salihi and Torhan Al-Mufti, a minister, demanded that the ongoing violence against the Turkmens be recognised as genocide. The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights published a statement condemning the attacks targeting the Turkmens, describing them as attempted genocide. Al-Maliki has also established a high-ranking committee headed by Hussein Sheristany, deputy prime minister for energy, and composed of many other ministers that will investigate the situation in Tuz Khurmatu. The committee has announced the town to be a disaster area, and it has begun to establish Turkmen Sahwa groups and a Turkmen regiment affiliated to the security forces. The Turkmens call the area where they have lived for centuries Turkmeneli, and this region stretches from the town of Tel Afer in the north-west of the country near the Syrian and Turkish borders, to Mendali in the east and close to the Iranian border. Tel Afer, home to more than 400,000 Turkmens, was the scene of deadly attacks between 2004 and 2008. The Turkmen area is described in article 140 of the Iraqi constitution as a “disputed area”, since the Kurds have been demanding that it be attached to their region. The Turkmens and the Arabs have refused, saying that the article cannot be applied unless it is modified, considering that it has expired according to the constitution which was supposed to be applied at the latest by 31 December 2007. Despite the inauspicious signs in some parts of the country, Iraqis have been welcoming the month of Ramadan and hoping for a peaceful holy month. In particular, they hope that Barzani's visit to Baghdad will help to reduce the gaps between the country's different political blocs and perhaps eventually lead to a reduction in the violence.
