Iraqi Turkmens

The Iraqi Turkmens (also spelled Turcomans, Turkomens, and Iraqi Turkmans), Iraqi Turks, or Turks of Iraq (Turkish: Irak Türkmenleri/Irak Türkleri) are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq who are the ethnic kin of the Turks. They mainly reside in northern Iraq and share close cultural and linguistic ties with Turkey.

The Iraqi Turkmens are the descendants of various waves of Turkic migration to Mesopotamia dating from the 7th century until Ottoman rule. The first wave of migration dates back to the 7th century when some 1,000 Turkmen soldiers were recruited in the Muslim armies of Ubayd-Allah ibn Ziyad; however, most of today's descendants of these first migrants have been assimilated into the local Arab population. The second wave of migrants were the Turks of the Great Seljuq Empire; finally, the third wave, and largest number of Turkmen migrants into Iraq arose during the Ottoman Empire. With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534, followed by Sultan Murad IV's capture of Baghdad in 1638, a large influx of Turks settled down in the region. Thus, most of today's Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.

Following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Iraqi Turkmen wanted Turkey to annex the Mosul Vilayet and for them to become part of an expanded state. However, due to the end of the Ottoman monarchy, the Iraqi Turkmen found themselves increasingly discriminated against by policies of successive regimes, such as the Kirkuk Massacre of 1959 and in 1979 when the Ba’th Party increasingly discriminated against the community. Although they were recognized as a constitutive entity of Iraq (alongside the Arabs and Kurds) in the constitution of 1925, the Iraqi Turkmen were later denied this status.

Claims of their population range between 500,000 to over 3 million, regardless of this uncertainty, it is generally accepted that the Iraqi Turks are the third-largest ethnic group in Iraq. According to the 1957 census, which is recognized as the last reliable census, as later censuses were reflections of the Arabization policies of the Ba’ath regime, Arabs formed the largest ethnicity followed by Kurds (13%) and Iraqi Turkmen (9%).

The Iraqi Turkmens predominantly live in the north of Iraq, especially in Tal Afar, Mosul, Arbil, Altunkupri, Kirkuk, and Baghdad.