Kirkuk

The ancient name of Kirkuk is Arrap'ha. During the Parthian kingdom, Korkura / Corcura was mentioned by Ptolemy , who is believed to be named under this name precisely the current Kirkuk or the village of Baba Gurgur 5 km from the city ^[5] . In the state of the Seleucids, it was known as Karkha D-Bet Slokh , which means "Citadel of the House of the Seleucids" ^[6] .

The area around Kirkuk was known in Aramaic and Syrian sources as " Beth Garmai " (ܒܝܬܓܪܡܝ), which means "warm country" (in modern Kurdish - " Garmiyan ", "hot country").

After the 7th century, Muslim writers used the name Kirkheni ("The Citadel" ^[7] ). Others used other options, such as Bajermi (a distorted Aramaic " B'th Garmayeh ") or Jermakan (a distorted Persian Garmakan ). In a clay tablet found at the foot of the Kirkuk citadel in 1927, it was noted that the ancient Babylonian city of Erekha stood on the site of Kirkuk, but some experts believe that Erekha was only one of the districts of Arrapha.

The city is located 250 km north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad . The Kirkuk region is located between the Zagros Mountains in the northeast, the Zab River and the Tigris River in the west, the Hamrin Mountains ( Arabic : جبل حمرين) in the south, and the Sirvan River in the southeast.

Kirkuk has a hot desert climate, with extremely hot, dry summers and cool, rainy winters. Snow was last recorded in 1990, February 22, 2004, and January 10–11, 2008 ^[8] .

Archaeological finds in the village of Shanidar allow Kirkuk to be considered one of the places inhabited in ancient times by Neanderthals ^[10] . Also in the city and its environs, a large amount of ceramics belonging to the Ubeyd culture was found ^[11] .

The city was founded around 2000 BC. er the inhabitants of the Zagros Mountains, which were known as the Gutia and lived in the lowlands of southern Mesopotamia. Arrapha was the capital of the kingdom of the Gutia ( Gutium ), which is mentioned in cuneiform records from 2400 BC ^[12] .

Ancient Arrapha was then part of the empire of Sargon of Akkad ^[13] , it is known that the city was subjected to the Lullubey raids during the reign of Naram-Suen ^[14] .

By the middle of the 2nd millennium BC er the Mitannians began to settle in the Semitic city of Nusi south of Kirkuk and expand their dominance until they conquered the Hurrians and Assyrians ^[15] . From 1500 to 1360 BC er all the kings of Assyria were vassals of the kingdom of Mitanni ^[15] .

After the Achaemenids, the region came under the control of Parthia and the Sassanids , and Kirkuk was the capital of the Bet-Garmay region ^[16] .

After the Islamic Conquest

Muslims conquered the Sassanid empire in the 7th century AD. The city was part of the Islamic caliphate until the X century. Further , the Seljuk Turks ruled Kirkuk and the surrounding areas for many years. After the collapse of their state, the city became part of the possession of the Turkic Zangid dynasty for one century. After the Mongol invasion, the city became part of the Ilkhanov state , until the region was conquered by the Kara-Koyunlu and Ak-Koyunlu tribes . The Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 16th century took control of Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and Hijaz. Turkish rule lasted until the end of World War I.

British occupation

At the end of World War I, the British occupied Kirkuk on May 7, 1918. Leaving the city about two weeks later, the British returned to Kirkuk a few months after the Mudros Armistice . Kirkuk avoided the troubles caused by the actions of the British protégé Sheikh Mahmoud, who eventually tried to challenge the British and create his own estate in Suleimaniya: the people of Kirkuk, in particular Sheikh Talabani, demanded that the city be excluded from the possessions of Sheikh Mahmoud.

Joining the Kingdom of Iraq

After the war ended, Turkey, with British support, wanted to gain control of the Mosul vilayet (of which Kirkuk was a part). The Lausanne Treaty of 1923 did not resolve this issue. For this reason, the question of Mosul was sent to the League of Nations. As a result, it was decided that the territory south of the Brussels Line belongs to Iraq, and under the Ankara Treaty of 1926, Kirkuk became part of the Kingdom of Iraq.

Oil discovery

In 1927, Iraqi and American oilmen working under a concession agreement for the Iraqi Oil Company (INC) extracted oil from Baba Gurgur near Kirkuk. INC began exporting Kirkuk oil in 1934, and the company transferred its headquarters from Tuz Homart to a camp on the outskirts of Kirkuk, which they named Arrapha after the ancient city. Arrapha remains the largest district of the city to this day. The INC had a significant political influence in the city and played a central role in the urbanization of Kirkuk, initiating housing construction and development of projects in cooperation with the Iraqi authorities in the 1940-1950s ^[17] .

The development of the oil industry has influenced Kirkuk's demographics. Since 1930, Arabs and Kurds poured into the city in search of work. Kirkuk, which at that time was predominantly a Turkmen city, gradually ceased to be one ^{[18] [19] [20]} . At the same time, a large number of Kurds from the mountains moved to the deserted, but cultivated, rural areas of Kirkuk County. The influx of Kurds into Kirkuk continued in the 1960s ^[21] . According to the 1957 census, the population of Kirkuk was 37.63% Iraqi Turkmens, 33.26% Kurds and less than 23% Arabs.

The Kirkuk field remains the backbone of oil production in northern Iraq - 1.6 km³ of proven oil reserves remaining in the country as of 1998. After seven decades of development, Kirkuk still produces up to one million barrels of oil per day, nearly half of all Iraqi oil exports.

However, oil production is hampered by political instability in the region. From April 2003 to the end of December 2004, 123 attacks were recorded on Iraqi energy infrastructure, including pipelines. In response to these attacks, which cost Iraq billions of dollars in revenues from oil exports and repairs, the US military created the Shield Task Force to protect Iraq’s energy infrastructure and the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in particular ^[22] .

1970 Autonomy Agreement

On paper, the Autonomy Agreement of March 11, 1970 recognized the legitimacy of Kurdish participation in government and the teaching of the Kurdish language in schools. However, the decision on the status of the Kurdish areas of Iraq was postponed until the census ^[18] . A census conducted in 1977 demonstrated a confident Kurdish majority in the city of Kirkuk and surrounding areas. In June 1973, the leader of the Kurdish partisans, Mullah Mustafa Barzani, announced the invalidity of the agreement between the Kurds and the Ba'ath and officially declared the Kirkuk deposits the property of the Kurds.

Baghdad regarded this as a declaration of war and in March 1974 unilaterally abolished the status of Kurdish autonomy. Under the new autonomy project, the most oil-rich areas of Kirkuk, Hanakin and Sinjar were excluded from its composition. As part of the administrative reform, sixteen provinces of the country (akimats) were renamed, and in some cases their borders were changed. The old province of Kirkuk was divided in half. The area around the city itself was called At-Tamim (Arabic: التأميم ^[23] .

According to Human Rights Watch ^[24] .

The Arabization of Kirkuk and other oil-rich regions is not a new phenomenon. By the mid-1970s, the government of the Ba'ath Party, which had seized power in 1968, embarked on a concerted campaign to change the demographic composition of multinational Kirkuk. The campaign involved the massive relocation of tens of thousands of ethnic minority families from Kirkuk, Sinjar, Khanakin and other areas to specially constructed resettlement camps. This policy was strengthened after the failed Kurdish uprising in March 1991 ^{[25] [26] [27] [28] [29]} . Iraqi authorities also seized property of supporters of the uprising ^[30] .

Kirkuk after 2003

US and British forces in March 2003 led an invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party. Since April 2003, thousands of internally displaced Kurds have returned to Kirkuk and other Arabized regions, returning their homes and lands, which were then occupied by Arabs from central and southern Iraq.

Under the leadership of Paul Bremer , head of the American occupation administration, May 24, 2003, the first city council in history was elected in Kirkuk. Each of the four main ethnic groups of the city sent a delegation of 39 members to the council, of which they were allowed to choose six. Six more council members were selected from 144 delegates representing independent social groups such as teachers, lawyers, religious leaders, and artists. After the formation of the council, Turkmens and Arabs complained that the Kurds held five of their delegates as independent candidates.

In August 2011, five churches in Kirkuk were damaged by bombs.

July 12, 2013 in Kirkuk as a result of an attack by a suicide bomber in a cafe, 38 people were killed. On the eve of more than 40 people were killed in a series of explosions and shootings throughout Iraq, including in Kirkuk ^[31] .

On June 12, 2014, the city was occupied by Kurdish troops when the Iraqi army fled after the advance of the Islamic state forces ^{[32] [33]} .

On January 30, 2015, militants of the “ Islamic State ” attacked Kirkuk to distract the Kurdish Peshmerga militia from attacking Mosul occupied by the militants ^[34] .

On October 21, 2016, IS fighters attacked the city of Kirkuk. They managed to occupy 7 quarters of the city, as well as free the prisoners from the local prison. A few hours later, the Iraqi army knocked out IS fighters from the city. According to experts, the militants carried out a distracting maneuver to prevent the coalition forces from concentrating around Mosul ^[35]

On September 25, 2017, a referendum was held in the city and the same governorate on the entry into Iraqi Kurdistan and the independence of the latter ^[36] . In response, in mid-October of that year, Iraqi forces launched a military operation against Peshmerga . On October 16, Kirkuk came under the control of Iraqi government forces. ^[37]

Kirkuk is the center of the oil industry in northern Iraq. The Kirkuk field, discovered in 1927 and developed since 1934, is one of the largest in the world ^[38] .

Ancient architectural monuments of Kirkuk include:

• Kirkuk Citadel (9th century BC)
• Qishla ( Ottoman army barracks)
• Tomb of the Prophet Daniel (disputed)
• Bazari-Pirehmerd market.

The archaeological sites of Jarmo and Nusi are located on the outskirts of modern Kirkuk. In 1997, there were reports that the government of Saddam Hussein plans to "demolish the historic citadel of Kirkuk with its mosques and ancient churches" ^{[39] [40]} .

Kirkuk's architectural heritage was severely damaged during World War II (some pre-Islamic Assyrian Christian monuments were destroyed) and more recently, during the Iraq war. British journalist Simon Jenkins said in June 2007 that “eighteen ancient shrines were lost, ten in Kirkuk and eight to the south” ^[41] .

• Anderson, Liam. Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise / Liam Anderson, Gareth Stansfield. - University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011 .-- ISBN 0-8122-0604-5 .
• Bosworth. The Encyclopaedia of Islam Vol. V. - Brill, 1954. - P. 144–147. - ISBN 90-04-06056-1 .
• Edwards, IES; Gadd, CJ; Hammond, NGL The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol. 1, pt. 1 . - Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Edwards, Iorwerth Eiddon Stephen; Charlesworth, Martin Percival; Boardman, John. The Cambridge Ancient History: Vol. 1, part 2 . - Cambridge University Press, 1970.
• Gusterin P.V. Cities of the Arab East. - M .: East-West, 2007. - 352 p. - (Encyclopedic reference book). - 2000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-478-00729-4

• Kerkuk Feneri (Kirkuk Lantern), 1998-2009 ( tur .)