Shafaq News- Khanaqin

The map around Khanaqin looks markedly different from what it did a generation ago. In northeastern Diyala, near the Iranian border and southeast of the Kurdistan Region, administrative boundaries have shifted, familiar areas have come under different jurisdictions, and disputes over land and population have made every change more consequential.

What began on the map has gradually reached further into the life of the city. Agricultural contracts remain unresolved, families arriving from elsewhere have changed the commercial landscape, Arabic has become more prominent on shop signs, and some parents are reconsidering whether Kurdish-language education offers their children the future they want.

All of this has unfolded alongside a political struggle of its own. Kurdish parties retain a substantial base in Khanaqin, but their votes remain divided, while residents often find themselves navigating between Baghdad's administrative authority and Erbil's longstanding political and social ties to the city.

A Shrinking Map

For people who remember Khanaqin's former reach, the change is visible in the territory itself. Qaratepe, Jabbarah, Jalawla and Saadiyah were once part of the district, according to Muhaymin al-Agha, a senior official in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The conversion of Qaratepe and Jalawla into separate districts removed them from Khanaqin's administration and reduced the territory under its control.

''The PUK has challenged some of those decisions through legal channels,'' Al-Agha said, arguing that objections were not adequately addressed before some of the changes moved through Diyala's provincial institutions.

The story, however, reaches back further than the events of Oct. 16, 2017. Those events came weeks after the Kurdistan Region held an independence referendum, which Baghdad rejected as unconstitutional. On Oct. 16, Iraqi forces, backed by Popular Mobilization forces (PMF), moved into several disputed areas, including Khanaqin, after Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew, shifting control of territory that had been held by Kurdish forces.

Serbest Barzo, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), traces an earlier turning point to 1992, when the subdistricts of Bamu and Maidan were separated from Khanaqin and attached to Kalar. Further changes came after Oct. 16, 2017, affecting Mandali, Jalawla, Qaratepe, Jabbarah and Saadiyah.

"Khanaqin was one of the largest districts in Iraq in terms of area and administration," Barzo recalled.

Its territory once extended east toward Iran, north toward Halabja and al-Sulaymaniyah. Today, the city is largely a district center with almost no subdistricts remaining under its direct administration.

Sarwan Mohammed, a Khanaqin resident, sees more than administrative reorganization behind that transformation. He links some of the later changes to competition among influential Sunni Arab political forces in Diyala, associating the administration of Qaratepe and Jabbarah with the influence of the Taqaddum (Progress) Party, led by Mohammad Al-Halbousi, and developments involving Jalawla and Saadiyah with the Sovereignty Alliance (Al-Siyada), led by Khamis Al-Khnajar.

Land and Identity

For Barzo, the consequences are particularly visible in the changes that have taken place since 2017. He describes them as "Arabization and demographic change," pointing to Arab families from other areas who moved into Khanaqin and bought shops, homes, and land.

He further connects those developments to Article 140 of Iraq's constitution, which provides a framework for resolving the status of disputed territories and addressing the consequences of earlier demographic policies. Nearly two decades after the deadline originally set for completing the process, Article 140 remains unimplemented.

The unresolved status of the disputed territories has also left land and agricultural contracts in limbo. Legislation and decisions introduced after 2003 were intended to address earlier policies and restore rights to their owners, Barzo argues, but significant parts of that process have not been fully implemented in Diyala, particularly in Khanaqin.

Some contracts granting the use of disputed agricultural land have continued to be renewed rather than being settled through a final determination of ownership. For Barzo, the issue is not the ethnicity of the person using the land, but the legal basis of the right itself.

The population side of the dispute is harder to separate from everyday life. Abu Marwan, a former educator, has noticed more people from outside Khanaqin in its markets, restaurants, and public spaces. Some settled after the October 2017 events, he told Shafaq News, while others arrive to work, trade, shop, or complete government transactions.

For Barzo, those movements matter partly because of where Khanaqin sits, describing the city as part of a strategically important belt linking the Iranian border with the Kurdistan Region and central Iraq, further calling it the "Gateway to the Zagros."

"The location gives the administrative changes a significance that extends beyond the city itself," he said, stressing that control of Khanaqin and surrounding areas can affect the geographic continuity of Kurdish-majority territories outside the Kurdistan Region's formal administration.

That broader contest, however, is not confined to maps, property records or constitutional provisions. It is increasingly visible in the way the city looks and functions.

Changing Khanaqin

Walk through Khanaqin's markets and another part of the transformation comes into view. Arabic has become increasingly common on commercial signs, according to residents and shopkeepers interviewed by Shafaq News.

For many shop owners, the reason is practical. A growing number of customers come from outside the city, and Arabic is the language most likely to reach them.

The same kind of calculation is beginning to influence education.

Abu Marwan has watched some families reconsider whether to send their children to Kurdish-language schools. For them, the decision is not simply about language or identity, but also about what happens after graduation.

Financial difficulties have limited employment opportunities within Kurdistan Region institutions, while salary delays and other pressures have affected the education system.

Garmian University has become part of that uncertainty. The university once had about 4,000 students, but concerns over national recognition of its degrees have made some families uneasy about the prospects facing graduates.

For students, Abu Marwan sees two difficult paths: limited employment opportunities inside the Kurdistan Region or potential obstacles when they seek to enter federal institutions.

Language, in that sense, has become tied to the wider economic and political choices facing families. The changes are subtle enough to appear ordinary —a different language on a shop sign, a family choosing one school over another, a customer arriving from another part of Diyala— but together they point to a city whose social and economic landscape is shifting.

Divided Strength

Those shifts are taking place while Kurdish political forces remain divided over how best to respond. Ahmed Mohammed, a political observer of Kurdish affairs in Khanaqin, describes the relationship between Kurdish political forces as having moved from "integration" to "erosion."

The PUK and KDP frequently enter elections separately, and their rivalry can continue after the votes have been counted. Among their supporters, Mohammed argues, defeating the other Kurdish party can sometimes become almost as important as winning a seat.

The numbers illustrate the dilemma. Mohammed estimates that the KDP has more than 10,000 votes in the area, while the PUK has more than 30,000. Together, those figures represent a substantial electoral bloc, but separate lists divide its political impact and make it harder to convert that strength into equivalent representation in the Iraqi parliament and Diyala Provincial Council.

Mohammed argues that Kurdish political competition risks weakening the city's ability to defend its interests at a time when Khanaqin already occupies an ambiguous position between Baghdad and Erbil authorities.

That ambiguity is familiar to residents. When people from Khanaqin turn to Baghdad, artist Abbas al-Zahawi says, they can encounter the view that the city is politically connected to the Kurdistan Region. When they turn to Erbil, they can receive the opposite response: Khanaqin falls administratively under the Iraqi government.

The result is a sense of being caught between two systems without a clear political home.

Between Two Capitals

For residents who remember the years after 2003, that feeling is especially pronounced because the relationship between Khanaqin and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) was once much more visible.

The city received reconstruction projects and substantial support from the KRG during that period. Barzo estimates that roughly 14 years of projects helped Khanaqin recover from some of the destruction and deterioration in services inherited from the previous Baath regime.

Al-Zahawi remembers the city before 2017 as "a beautiful mosaic" of people, languages and customs. The events of Oct. 16 that year, he believes, marked a turning point.

"The KRG and Kurdish political forces cannot be exempted from responsibility," he said, calling what followed "political erosion."

He also estimates that the KRG's service presence in Khanaqin fell by as much as 90% after the events, arguing that Kurdish parties devoted too much attention to internal competition instead of using their political and financial resources to protect the city's position and address residents' needs.

Al-Agha, meanwhile, places responsibility elsewhere as well as within the Kurdish political camp. While holding Baghdad primarily responsible for the administrative changes, he believes Kurdish divisions have weakened the ability of the parties to respond effectively.

The result, therefore, is a problem that can no longer be reduced to a single dispute over boundaries. For Khanaqin, the uncertainty surrounding its borders and political status continues to shape everyday life. As Baghdad and Erbil maintain competing ties to the city, residents are left waiting for greater clarity over the institutions and decisions that govern them.

Written and edited by Shafaq News staff.