Diyala council seeks to block Qaratapa district upgrade
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Diyala Provincial Council has requested the Iraqi planning ministry to suspend the controversial elevation of Qaratapa into a district, a council member said on Tuesday, with plans for the subdistrict's elevation having drawn the ire of Kurds in the disputed province.
The Iraqi government in early July approved changes in Diyala province that would see the merging of the predominantly-Kurdish subdistricts of Qaratapa, Jabara, Koks, and Kulajo into a new Qaratapa district – a decision deemed by Kurds as a renewed effort to alter the demographics of the disputed province and seize territory from Kurdish control.
Aws al-Mahdawi, the sole Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) member from the council, told Rudaw that Qaratapa does not meet the criteria to become a district, and that the council's head has officially requested the planning ministry to suspend the procedures.
'Those who did this were doing it for election propaganda, with some failed parliamentarians behind the move,' Mahdawi said, adding that a committee will be formed to investigate the matter.
The council presented several factors, explaining that Qaratapa's population is below that required to promote a subdistrict and that the area falls within the framework of Article 140 and should not tampered with.
Additionally, Koks subdistrict is under the control of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and not Diyala province, which is under federal control. As such, Mahdawi stressed that its inclusion in the plan is 'illegal.'
Sherko Mirwais, a PUK leadership official and head of the party's Khanaqin office, in early July called the changes a 'threat to all of Kurdistan and the future of Kurds in Kurdish areas outside the Kurdistan Region's administration.'
Following the fall of the Baath regime in 2003, Iraq began a policy of de-Arabization under Article 140 of the constitution, aiming to reverse the demographic changes imposed by former dictator Saddam Hussein.
The failure to fully implement it, however, has been cited as one of the main reasons for the continued attempts at demographic change in the disputed territories.
Nahro Mohammed contributed to this report.
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