Iraqi Kurdistan parliament, Erbil, July 2019. Photo: Rudaw
HEWLÊR-Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdistan region,— Iraqi Kurdistan Parliament on Sunday approved a legislation about narcotics use and trafficking in the Kurdish Region and a resolution to establish national days for the Turkmen nation.
The lawmakers approved the narcotics bill with 88 out of 111 votes and the resolution Turkmen national days with 73 votes.
The Kurdistan Parliament tweeted that the lawmakers had asked to vote on parts of the anti-narcotics, bill in a closed session due to concerns about “personal safety.”
The lawmakers are also expected to finish the second reading of a pension reform bill during the session.
Following its reintroduction into parliament late last year, the pension legislation raised objections from activists and pension beneficiaries who said that their payments would be cut, while government officials still received significant pensions.
Turkmen are pro-Turkey Iraqis of Turkic origin who mostly adhere to a Turkish heritage and identity. Most Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq from Anatolia during the rule of the Ottoman Empire. Despite the popular reference to the Turks of Iraq as “Turkmen”, they are not directly related to the Turkmen people of Turkmenistan and do not identify as such.
Today, the Iraqi Turkmen form the third largest ethnic group in Iraq, after the Arabs and Kurds. According to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning, in 2013, the Iraqi Turkmen population numbered 3 million out of Iraq’s 34.7 million inhabitants The minority mainly reside in northern and central Iraq and share close cultural and linguistic ties with Turkey, particularly the Anatolian region.
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