Shafaq News/ A leading figure of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) lambasted the politically-motivated attempts to revive Saddam Hussein's Arabization policies in Khanaqin, hinting at "legal stratagems" the Arab settlers who were paid out the Kurdish territories in Khanaqin pursue to usurp the lands of the Kurds again.

The Ba'athist Arabization campaigns in northern Iraq involved ethnic cleansing of minorities -primarily Kurds, as well as Turkmen, Yazidis, Assyrians, and Shabaks- in line with settler colonialist policies, to shift the demographics of northern Iraq towards Arab domination. In 1978 and 1979, 600 Kurdish villages were burned down, and around 200,000 Kurds were forced to move to other parts of Iraq.

The media officer of the PUK organizations in Khanaqin, Ebrahim Hasan, told Shafaq News Agency that hundreds of Arabs who returned to their hometowns in south and Mid-Iraq in an attempt to reverse Saddam Hussein's ethnic cleansing of Khanaqin are flocking daily to courts in the district to demand compensations in accordance with Article 140 of the constitution, "even though they all received the compensations before leaving the lands that legally belong to Kurds."

"After the fall of the former regime in 2003, Kurdish lands were evacuated from the Arabs Saddam Hussein brought as a part of his Arabization campaign. They were handed their properties and paid compensations pursuant to Article 140 of the constitution," the Kurdish official explained.

Hasan accused "political parties" of spurring the "Arabization lawsuits" for "nationalist and electoral purposes."

The PUK leading figure pilloried those parties' "abuse of the state" for "political gains and demographic dreams".

"One of the legal stratagems the former settlers use to enter Khanaqin is filing lawsuits against the US forces," he said.

Article 140 of Iraq's 2005 constitution calls for several steps to address the dispute over Kirkuk, a mix of Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, including a referendum.

Before the referendum can proceed, a census must be completed, and a "normalization" process mandated under Article 140 of Iraq's 2005 constitution must also be dealt with.

"Normalisation" involves paying compensation to Arab settlers to reverse Saddam Hussein's Arabization policy of the 1970s and 1980s, when thousands of Kurds and Turkmen were expelled from Kirkuk to be replaced by Arabs.

Arab families were offered 20 million dinars and land to return to their original hometowns.