Kirkuk Agricultural Lands Still Suffer from Ba’ath-Era Ownership Disputes

Kurdistani Nwe

Kirkuk farmers.

Vast areas of agricultural land in Kirkuk continue to face unresolved ownership disputes, stemming from decisions made under Iraq's former Ba’ath regime.

Abdullah Mirwais, Head of the Agriculture Committee in the Kirkuk Provincial Council, stated that the most pressing issue for Kurdish and Turkmen farmers is the confiscation of lands under unjust rulings by the now-defunct Revolutionary Command Council.

“The solution lies in enforcing existing decisions and legislation,” Kurdistani Nwe Newspaper quoted Mirwais as saying. He pointed to a 2012 decision by the Federal Council of Ministers, which annulled several decrees of the dissolved Northern Affairs Council, but lamented that the decision remains unenforced.

He also highlighted the law, which was recently passed by the Iraqi Parliament and that mandates the return of properties to their rightful owners. 

“This law, supported strongly by the Kurdish blocs—particularly the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)—aims to address the injustices suffered by Kurdish and Turkmen farmers in Kirkuk and other disputed territories under the former regime,” he explained.

Mirwais noted that the implementation of the law would restore millions of dunams of farmland to their original owners in Kirkuk, Khanaqin, Tuz Khurmatu, Mandali, and Nineveh Governorate.

He called for the swift issuance of special implementation guidelines, stating: “The Kirkuk Provincial Council fully supports Kurdish and Turkmen farmers and will not tolerate any further injustice against them.”

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Iraq's dissolved Revolutionary Command Council issued a series of decisions regarding agricultural lands, especially in the disputed territories, which included distributing the lands to the ministries, which in turn redistributed them to farmers under contracts. 

The move was aimed at Arabising the Kurdish areas, primarily the oil-rich region of Kirkuk. This policy involved forcibly displacing Kurds and other ethnic minorities, and replacing them with Arabs from southern Iraq.  Lands of other communities were confiscated by the then ruling Baath regime, under Saddam Hussein, and they were later given to resettled Arabs.

The regions affected by the policy are currently known as the disputed regions and they stretch across several provinces, including Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala, and Saladin.

The Iraqi Parliament passed the Property Restitution Law in January 2025, aimed at returning lands confiscated under previous regimes to their rightful owners. While the legislation marked a significant step towards justice and reconciliation—particularly for Kurdish and Turkmen communities affected by past policies—it has yet to be implemented. The delay in enforcement has raised concerns among stakeholders, who emphasise that without swift and effective action, the law’s intended impact will remain unrealised.



PUKMEDIA