Kirkuk
Kirkuk is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of the Kirkuk Governorate. The city is home to a diverse population of Kurds, Iraqi Turkmens and Arabs. Kirkuk sits on the ruins of the original Kirkuk Citadel which sits near the Khasa River.
It is described by the Kurdish leader and former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani as “the Jerusalem of Kurdistan” even though it is not part of Iraqi Kurdistan region, while it is seen by the Turkmen activist Fatih Salah as the cultural and historical capital of Iraqi Turkmens. The government of Iraq states that Kirkuk represents a small version of Iraq due to its diverse population, and that the city is a model for coexistence in the country.
Etymology
The ancient name of Kirkuk was the Hurrian Arrapha During the Parthian era, a Korkura/Corcura is mentioned by Ptolemy, which is believed to refer either to Kirkuk or to the site of Baba Gurgur from the city. Since the Seleucid Empire it was known as karkā d-ḇeṯ slōḵ, which means 'Citadel of the House of Seleucid' in Mesopotamian Aramaic, the lingua franca of the Fertile Crescent in that era.The region around Kirkuk was known historically in the Eastern Aramaic and Syriac Assyrian sources as Beth Garmai. The name "Beth Garmai" or "Beth Garme" may be of Syriac origin which meaning "the house of bones", which is thought to be a reference to bones of slaughtered Achaemenids after a decisive Macedonian victory in the Battle of Gaugamela. An alternative explanation for the name's origin suggests that it may have been derived from a people, possibly an Assyrian or Persian tribe.
It was one of a number of independent Neo-Assyrian states which flourished during the Parthian empire.
It is also thought that region was known during the Parthian and Sassanid periods as Garmakan, which means the 'Land of Warmth' or the 'Hot Land'. In Persian "Garm" means warm;
After the 7th century, Muslim writers used the name Kirkheni to refer to the city. Others used other variant, such as Bajermi .
History
Ancient history
It is suggested that Kirkuk was one of the places occupied by Neanderthals based on archeological findings in the Shanidar Cave settlement. A large amount of pottery shards dating to the Ubaid period were also excavated from several Tells in the city.Early Bronze
Akkadian Period
Ancient Arrapkha was a part of Sargon of Akkad's Akkadian Empire, and city was exposed to the raids of the Lullubi during Naram-Sin's reign.Gutian Period
Later the city was occupied around 2150 BC by language Isolate speaking Zagros Mountains dwellers who were known as the Gutian people by the Semitic and Sumerian of Mesopotamians. Arraphkha was the capital of the short-lived Guti kingdom.Ur III Period
The Gutians were driven from Mesopotamia by the Neo-Sumerian Empire c. 2115 BC.Middle Bronze
Arrapkha became a part of the Old Assyrian Empire, before Hammurabi briefly subjected Assyria to the short-lived Babylonian Empire, after which it again became a part of Assyria c.1725 BC.Late Bronze
Mitanni Period
However, by the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C. the Indo-Aryan Mittani of Anatolia formed a ruling class over the language isolate speaking Hurrians, and began to expand into a Hurri-Mitanni Empire. In the 1450s they attacked Assyria, sacking Assur, and bringing the cities of Gasur and Arrapkha under their control. From c.1450 to 1393 BC the kings of Assyria paid tribute to the kingdom of Mittani.Assyrian Period
The Middle Assyrian Empire overthrew the Hurri-Mitanni in the mid 14th century BC. Arrapha became part of Assyria proper, with the Hurrian population driven away from the region. In the 11th and 10th centuries BC the city rose to prominence, becoming an important city in Assyria until the fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.Iron Age
It remained as such throughout the Neo-Assyrian Empire where it became an important Assyrian city.After the fall of Assyria between 612 and 599 BC it was still an integral part of the geo-political province of Assyria – Achaemenid Assyria, Athura, Seleucid Syria, Assyria and Assuristan. In the Parthian and Sassanid eras Kirkuk was capital of the small Assyrian state of Beth Garmai.
The city briefly came to be part of the short-lived Median Empire before falling to the Achaemenid Empire where it was incorporated into the province of Athura.
Later it became part of the Macedonian Empire and succeeding Seleucid Empire before falling to the Parthian Empire as a part of Athura. The Parthians seemed to only exercise loose control, and a number of small Neo-Assyrian kingdoms sprang up in the region between the 2nd century BC and 4th century AD, one such kingdom named "ܒܝܬܓܪܡܝ", had Arrapha as its capital. Christianity also arose during this period, with Arrapha and its surrounds being influenced by the Assyrian Church of the East. The Sassanid Empire destroyed these kingdoms during 3rd and early 4th centuries AD, and Arrapha was incorporated into Sassanid ruled Assuristan.
In AD 341, the Zoroastrian Shapur II ordered the massacre of all Assyrian Christians in the Persian Sassanid Empire. During the persecution, about 1,150 were martyred in Arrapha.
Islamic Conquests of Mesopotamia
fought the Sassanid empire in the 7th century AD, conquering the region. The city was a part of the Islamic Caliphate until the tenth century. Kirkuk and the surrounding areas were then ruled by the Hasanwayhid Kurds & Annazid Kurds from 1014 to 1120 AD, then it was taken over by Seljuk Turks for many years. After the divided empire collapsed, the city came under the Abbasids rule once again Suleiman Shah who was the governor of the city until it was taken over by Mongols in 1258. After the Mongol invasion, the Ilkhanate was founded in the region and the city became a part of it. The Ilkhanid rule ended when in 1336, the Ardalan took over the city, despite being vassals themselves of the various in Persia centred succeeding Turkic federations in the region, namely that of the Qara Qoyunlu, and the Aq Qoyunlu specifically. After the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514 the city came under the Soran Emirate control until it was taken over by Babanids in 1694. In 1851 it became under direct control of the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman rule continued until World War I when the Ottomans were pushed out of the region by the British Empire.British occupation
At the end of World War I, the British occupied Kirkuk on 7 May 1918. Abandoning the city after about two weeks, the British returned to Kirkuk a few months later after the Armistice of Mudros. Kirkuk avoided the troubles caused by the Kurdish nationalist Mahmud Barzanji, who quickly attempted to overthrow the British Mandate in Iraq and establish his own fiefdom in Sulaymaniyah.Entry into the Kingdom of Iraq
As both Turkey and Great Britain desperately wanted control of the Vilayet of Mosul, the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 failed to solve the issue. For this reason, the question of Mosul was sent to the League of Nations. A committee travelled to the area before coming to a final decision: the territory south of the "Brussels line" belonged to Iraq. By the Treaty of Angora of 1926, Kirkuk became a part of the Kingdom of Iraq.Kurdish autonomy and Arabization
In 1970 the Iraqi government reached an agreement with Kurdish leader Mustafa Barzani called the March Agreement of 1970, but the question of whether the oil-rich province of Kirkuk would be included within the Kurdish autonomous region remained unresolved, pending a new census.Despite the signing of the March Agreement, relations between the Kurds and Iraqi government continued to deteriorate due to the unresolved status of Kirkuk, and there were two attempts to assassinate Barzani in 1972. In response to Barzani's continued demands during the early 1970s for Kirkuk to be recognized as part of the autonomous region under the terms of the March Agreement, settlement construction for newly arrived Arab families increased drastically as the Ba'athist government implemented Arabization policies to increase the Arab population of Kirkuk. Kurds were forbidden from buying property in Kirkuk, and could sell their properties only to Arabs. They were denied permission to renovate properties in need of maintenance, and poor Shi'a Arab families were paid to move to Kirkuk, while Kurds were paid to move out.
Negotiations between Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party and the Iraqi government collapsed in March 1974 and Barzani rejected President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr declaration of Kurdish autonomy. Many disputes persisted between the Kurds and Arabs and the conflict escalated into the Second Iraqi–Kurdish War. The rebellion collapsed after Iran withdrew its support for Barzani's forces following the 1975 Algiers Agreement and the Ba'ath regime intensified Arabization efforts.
After Barzani's rebellion was defeated in 1974, the districts of Chemchemal and Kelar, which had been part of Kirkuk, became part of Sulaymaniyah and Kifri became part of Diyala province. Other Arab-populated districts, like Zab, became part of Kirkuk. Kurds, Turkmen and Christian populations were forcibly relocated and replaced with Shi'a from Iraq's south. The expulsions continued after the 1991 uprisings. Kurdish villages were razed and thousands of new homes were built, including at least 200 homes for relatives of Iraqi soldiers killed during the Iran-Iraq War. Between 1968, when the Ba'ath Party first rose to power in Iraq, and 2003 between 200,000 and 300,000 persons were forcibly relocated out of Kirkuk. According to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning, by August 2005, approximately 224,544 Kurds had returned to Kirkuk and 52,973 Arab persons had left the city.