The Iraqi Turkmen Front, the largest political party representing the minority Turkmen ethnic group, has reiterated its objection to the Kurdistan referendum scheduled for Sept. 25. In a statement issued July 29, the front stressed that the fate of Kirkuk — a particularly disputed province that is set to be included in the referendum — "must be decided by the Iraqi parliament." In Kirkuk, Kurds account for 52% of the population, while Arabs, Turkmens and Christians combined account for 48%. The referendum also includes other areas of contention, including ones considered by the Turkmens as their own.

The Turkmen objection to the referendum goes in line with the position of the Iraqi government, which announced July 20 its rejection of the referendum. This raises the possibility of a war erupting in the region between the Iraqi security forces and the armed factions supporting them on the one hand and the peshmerga forces on the other. This would force Turkmens to take sides and would place their areas on the confrontation lines between the two parties.

Those areas, which have been disputed between Erbil and Baghdad since 2003, could be the spark that ignites a war between the Arabs and Kurds at any moment. On Nov. 16, 2016, Baghdad and Erbil mobilized their forces against the backdrop of a security dispute in those areas, namely in Kirkuk. This created the real possibility of armed conflict. The Turkmens, the third-largest ethnicity in Iraq after the Arabs and Kurds and whose presence in Iraq dates to the Ottoman occupation of the region, are well-aware of the repercussions of such a conflict and are concentrated in the provinces of Kirkuk, Salahuddin, Diyala and Ninevah, in Tal Afar and rural areas around Mosul, as well as in Erbil, Altun Kupri, Kifri, Qarah Tabbah, Khanaqin, Gazzrabat (Saadia) and Mandali.

Mehdi Saadoun, an activist in the Turkmen Rescue Foundation, told Al-Monitor, “Holding a referendum in these areas is to be expected following the defeat of the Islamic State [IS] in Iraq, as the Kurds seek to extend their control as much as possible in the disputed areas by definitively annexing them to Kurdistan while turning a blind eye to the fate of the Turkmens.”