Minorities in Iraq - Iraqi Turkmen

Iraqi Turkmen

The Iraqi Turkmen also claim to be the third largest ethnic group in Iraq,In the December 2005 elections, between five and seven Turkmen candidates were elected to the Council of Representatives. This included one candidate from the ITF (its leader Sadettin Ergec), two or four from the United Iraqi Alliance, one from the Iraqi Accord Front and one from the Kurdistani Alliance. They reside exclusively in the north, particularly in areas such as Mosul and Kirkuk. They are predominantly Sunni Muslims and are mostly secular in nature. There are a minority of Christians. When the Ba'ath party took over Baghdad, it declared in the constitution that schools were prohibited from using the Turkish language and banned Turkish-language media in Iraq. By the 1980s, Hussein prohibited the public use of the Turkish language completely. After the toppling of the Ba'athists, tensions started to rise between the Kurds and the Iraqi Turkmen. Assignations and acquisitions between the two sides made Kirkuk the only violent non-Arab city in Iraq during the aftermath of the U.S-led war. The violence has slowly died down and on January 30, 2006, the President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, said "Kurds are working on a plan to give Iraqi Turkmen autonomy in areas where they are a majority in the new constitution they're drafting for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." However, according to the last Iraqi census which was conducted in 1957, the Turkmens numbered 567,000 out of a population of 6.3 million; thus, they formed 9% of the total Iraqi population.

According to the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, at least 180,000 Turkmen live in the city of Kirkuk.

However, the Diyala Province and Kifri which were once mainly Turkoman cities have been heavily Kurdified and Arabified.

Iraqi Turkmen are most known for folk songs, especially the "qoyrats", long songs with nearly twenty different melodious voices forming rich literary texts are typical Turkmen musical works, and make up an important part of Turkish music. The songs often are protest-like, expressing sorrow and resentment over injustice. Hoyrats are a form of uzun hava built on quatrains which often contain allusions and plays on words. They are sung throughout Eastern Anatolia, Southeast Anatolia and Turkmeneli.

Iraqi Turkmen speak an Oghuz language that is one of the official languages of the Kirkuk region. It is closest to the languages spoken in Azerbaijan. Historically, some Iraqi Turkmen of the intelligentsia adopted the formal Ottoman Language as their written language during their rule by the Ottoman Empire. Iraqi Turkmens use standard Turkish -official language of Turkey in writing.