Read more: The borderland bargain: Daily life inside Khanaqin\u2019s quietly shifting frontier<\/a><\/p>\nFrom TV Remarks To Street Tensions<\/p>\n
The latest confrontation began with a television interview. Leaders of
\nthe Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
\n(PUK), the KRI\u2019s two dominant parties, spoke of “Arabization” and
\ndemographic change in Khanaqin since October 16, 2017 \u2014the day Iraqi federal
\nforces retook the district and other disputed areas from Kurdish Peshmerga
\nfighters after the KRG’s independence referendum. They pressed for Article 140
\nto be carried out.<\/p>\n
The remarks drew opposition in neighboring areas. In areas bordering the
\ndistrict, residents and public figures rejected the call and questioned the
\nlegal footing of Article 140 itself, and a few demanded that those raising it
\nbe prosecuted.<\/p>\n
Protest Called Off,\u00a0\u00a0An Arrest Hardens The Mood<\/p>\n
Kurdish parties met Sunday at a cultural center in Khanaqin and settled
\non a peaceful demonstration in the city center to demand that Article 140 and
\nrelated constitutional clauses be enforced, a participant told Shafaq News.
\nOrganizers intended to fly the Iraqi and Kurdistan flags side by side and to
\nprint slogans in both Arabic and Kurdish, and they insisted the event singled
\nout none of the district’s communities. Civil-society activists, meeting
\nseparately, agreed on much the same terms.<\/p>\n
The demonstration never went ahead. A committee overseeing it called the
\nevent off over the risk to participants and resolved to send a delegation to
\nBaghdad to put the area’s demands to the president and other senior officials.<\/p>\n
Sharper still was the detention of Kamran Ways Murad, a former commander
\nin the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella of mainly Shiite armed
\nfactions under nominal state control. A government source told Shafaq News that
\na security unit had arrested Murad \u2014better known as Abu Muntadhar al-Dalawi\u2014 in
\nKhanaqin under Article 200 of the Penal Code, which covers incitement to
\n“sectarian, racial and nationalist strife.”<\/p>\n
Accounts of what he said pull in opposite directions. In a video posted
\nonline, Murad urged that Khanaqin be treated as an “Iraqi Kurdistani”
\ncity and that the rights of every community be protected, framing his remarks
\nas a reply to a Badr Organization figure in the nearby town of Jalawla who had
\nattacked the Kurdish position. The security source, however, said Murad was
\narrested over videos authorities viewed as incitement against Arabs in the
\ndistrict. Murad’s own path has been a winding one: he once ran Badr in
\nKhanaqin, broke with it, later left Asaib Ahl al-Haq, and had recently aligned
\nwith a Kurdish party.<\/p>\n
Local PUK officials in Diyala said they knew nothing of any warrant for
\nhis arrest.<\/p>\n
The joint statement did more than endorse the suspension. It demanded
\nthe immediate release of everyone held and the cancellation of arrest warrants
\nissued against politicians, activists and young people, calling their
\ninvolvement peaceful. It also urged Iraq’s four top offices \u2014the presidency,
\nthe premiership, parliament and the judiciary\u2014 along with Kurdish
\nrepresentatives in Baghdad, to take up the area’s demands through
\nconstitutional channels.<\/p>\n
The Longer Dispute<\/p>\n
None of this came out of nowhere. Khanaqin shut down in a general strike
\nin February after the federal Planning Ministry moved to raise the Jalawla
\nsub-district to a full district, fold Saadiya into it, and turn Qara Tapa into
\na separate district, changes that would strip territory from Khanaqin. Kurdish
\nofficials and residents branded the plan a breach of Article 140 and an attempt
\nto shrink the district, while Shiite Arab figures in the area saw it as
\nreinforcing their standing in the border zone near Iran. No direct comment from
\nthe Jalawla figure or from Arab and Turkmen residents appeared in the reporting
\nreviewed by Shafaq News.<\/p>\n
The article sets out three steps to decide the disputed territories’
\nfuture: undoing the population changes imposed under Saddam Hussein, conducting
\na census, and holding a referendum in which residents choose between joining
\nthe Kurdistan Region and remaining under Baghdad. The timetable was meant to
\nclose by the end of 2007, but security and political turmoil derailed it. In
\n2019, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court ruled that the article stays in force until
\nits requirements are met.<\/p>\n
For now, the parties have asked residents to hold off until the
\ndelegation finishes its meetings in Baghdad. The Diyala Provincial Council is
\ndue to convene Wednesday, September 2, to question the Khanaqin district
\ncommissioner about the recent turmoil, a session sought in a memo backed by six
\ncouncil members, according to a document reviewed by Shafaq News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026-08-31T13:13:12+00:00 font Enable Reading Mode A- A A+ Shafaq News- Khanaqin Kurdish parties in Khanaqin, a disputed district…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[14],"tags":[152,18493,94,61444,74142],"class_list":["post-271517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iraq","tag-breaking","tag-diyala","tag-iraq","tag-khanaqin","tag-khanaqin-tensions-why-is-iraqs-article-140-back-in-focus"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117190408547991030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}