Khanaqin shuts down over Article 140 boundary move
Shafaq News- Khanaqin
Iraq’s Diyala province’s Khanaqin district came to a standstill Wednesday after a general strike closed markets, schools, and state offices in protest at federal decisions to carve new districts out of territory covered by Article 140 of Iraq’s constitution.
Article 140 outlines a three-stage process; normalization, census, and referendum, to determine the final status of disputed territories between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government, including Khanaqin and Kirkuk. The mechanism was meant to be completed by the end of 2007 but was never implemented, leaving the legal and administrative status of these areas unresolved and highly sensitive to any boundary changes.
The shutdown followed an order from the federal Planning Ministry upgrading Jalawla sub-district to district status, attaching Saadiya to it, and designating Qara Tapa as a separate district. Local Kurdish parties and activists say the move effectively reduces Khanaqin’s administrative weight in an area officially classified as “disputed.”
Diyala Provincial Council member Aws Ibrahim told Shafaq News that 11 council members filed a formal objection, describing the decisions as administrative violations affecting territories subject to Article 140. The council voted to suspend implementation of the Jalawla decision and asked parliament to summon the caretaker government and question the acting Planning Minister. Ibrahim, a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), accused federal authorities of pursuing “political and electoral motives,” warning that altering boundaries in disputed areas could upset community balance and deepen tensions.
Iyad Karkouki, spokesperson for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Khanaqin, noted to our agency that “any boundary change without political consensus among Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen contravenes the constitutional framework governing disputed territories.”
Political researcher Saif Al-Jumaili said the standoff underscores the cost of freezing Article 140, whose normalization, census and referendum stages have stalled since the post-2003 transition. He argued that any administrative restructuring in such areas requires joint coordination between Baghdad and Erbil to avoid legal and security fallout.
