
The Iraqi Turkmen (also spelled as Turkoman and Turcoman; Turkish: Irak Türkmenleri عراق توركمنلری), also referred to as Iraqi Turks,Turkish-Iraqis, the Turkish minority in Iraq, and the Iraqi-Turkish minority (Arabic: تركمان العراق, romanized: Turkumān al-ʻIrāq; Turkish: Irak Türkleri عراق توركلری, Kurdish: تورکمانی عێراق, Turkmanî Êraq) are Iraq's third largest ethnic group. They make up to 10%–13% of the Iraqi population and are native to northern Iraq. Iraqi Turkmen share ties with Turkish people, and do not identify with the Turkmen of Turkmenistan and Central Asia.
Irak Türkmenleri | |
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![]() Flag of Turkmeneli | |
Total population | |
3 million (2013 Iraqi Ministry of Planning estimate) Estimated 4 million to 5 million (or 10%–13% of the Iraqi population in 2020–21) | |
Regions with significant populations | |
Predominantly in the Turkmeneli region: Governorates of Kirkuk, Erbil, Nineveh, Saladin and Diyala | |
Languages | |
Turkmen dialect Also Iraqi Arabic, Kurdish,Standard Turkish | |
Religion | |
Predominantly: Islam (60-70% Sunni; 30-40% Shia) Small minority: Christianity (Catholic) |
Ethnonyms
According to Iraqi Turkmen scholar Professor Suphi Saatçi, prior to the mid-20th century the Turkmens in Iraq were known simply as "Turks". It was not until after the military coup of July 14, 1958, that the ruling military junta officially introduced the name "Turkman/Turkmen":
the political goal of the Iraqi government was to distinguish the Iraqi Turkmen from other Turks in Anatolia, just as the Greek government used the name "Muslim minority" for those Turks living within the borders of Greece.
The state-imposed terms on the Turks of Iraq were not resisted, for the word "Turkmen" had historically been designated to the Oghuz Turks who had accepted Islam and migrated westwards from Central Asia to the Middle East, and had continued to be used in the region. Thus, the Iraqi Turkmen (as well as the Syrian Turkmens and Anatolian Turkmens) do not identify themselves with the Turkmen people of Turkmenistan. Rather, the term "Turkmen" in the Middle East is often used to designate Turkic-speakers, particularly in the Arab areas, or where Sunni Turks live in Shiite dominated areas.
Despite the modern usage of the term "Turkmen", Professor David Kushner has pointed out that the term "Turks" continues to be used in referring to the "Outside Turks" of the former Ottoman Empire, including the Turks in Iraq, which is in contrast to the terms used for other Turkic peoples who did not share this Ottoman history:
Generally one may distinguish between the 'closer' communities [to Turkey] of Turks in Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria, and Iraq, on the one hand, and the more 'distant' ones in Iran, the Soviet Union and China, on the other...even the term "Turks" is selectively used. It is habitually used in reference to the 'closer' Turkish communities while the others are commonly referred to by their own particular names (i.e., Azeris, Turkestanis, etc.)... More important perhaps than the legal factor has been the historical and cultural identity of the Turks in Cyprus, Greece, Bulgaria and Iraq with the Turks of Turkey. Not only are these communities geographically adjacent to the Turks but they have all shared the Ottoman past, speak more or less the same language, and are predominantly Sunni.
In literature
Professor Orit Bashkin has observed that within Iraqi Turkmen literature, poets have managed to "remain loyal to Iraq as a state" whilst they have also "concurrently upheld their Turkish distinctiveness":
For Mustafa Gökkaya (b. 1910), this signified that his community was Muslim and that "my father is Turk, and the homeland [is] my mother". For Reşit Ali Dakuklu (b. 1918), being part of "the Turks of Iraq" signified maintaining brotherly relations with every nation, being united with Iraq, while speaking in Turkish. Universal and local, Iraqi and Turkish at the same time, the Turkoman poets were willing to serve their nation yet unwilling to neglect their culture and their Turkishness.
History

Origin
The exact origin of the Iraqi Turkmen is uncertain, but several possible explanations and theories of settlement in the region indicate that they likely originally emerged in Iraq as garrisons established by multiple rulers in various time periods.
The Iraqi Turkmen are believed to be the descendants of various waves of Turkic settlement in Mesopotamia beginning from the 7th century until the end of Ottoman rule (1919). The first wave of migration dates back to the 7th century, followed by migrations during the Seljuk Empire (1037–1194), the fleeing Oghuz during the Mongol destruction of the Khwarazmian dynasty (see Kara Koyunlu and Ag Qoyunlu), and the largest migration, during the Ottoman Empire (1535–1919). With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534, followed by Sultan Murad IV's capture of Baghdad in 1638, a large influx of Turks—predominantly from Anatolia—settled down in Iraq. It is believed that many of today's Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers, traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
Migration under Arab rule
The presence of Turkic peoples in what is today Iraq first began in the 7th century when approximately 2,000–5,000Oghuz Turks were recruited in the Muslim armies of Ubayd-Allah ibn Ziyad. They arrived in 674 with the Umayyud conquest of Basra. More Turkic troops settled during the 8th century, from Bukhara to Basra and also Baghdad. During the subsequent Abbasid era, thousands more of Turkmen warriors were brought into Iraq; however, the number of Turkmen who had settled in Iraq were not significant, as a result, the first wave of Turkmen became assimilated into the local Arab population.
Seljuk migration
The second wave of Turkmens to descend on Iraq were the Turks of the Great Seljuq Empire. Large scale migration of the Turkmen in Iraq occurred in 1055 with the invasion of Sultan Tuğrul Bey, the second ruler of the Seljuk dynasty, who intended to repair the holy road to Mecca. For the next 150 years, the Seljuk Turks placed large Turkmen communities along the most valuable routes of northern Iraq, especially Tal Afar, Erbil, Kirkuk, and Mandali, which is now identified by the modern community as Turkmeneli. Many of these settlers assumed positions of military and administrative responsibilities in the Seljuk Empire.
Ottoman migration

The third, and largest, wave of Turkmen migration to Iraq arose during the four centuries of Ottoman rule (1535–1919). By the first half of the sixteenth century the Ottomans had begun their expansion into Iraq, waging wars against their arch rival, the Persian Safavids. In 1534, under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, Mosul was sufficiently secure within the Ottoman Empire and became the chief province (eyalet) responsible for all other administrative districts in the region. The Ottomans encouraged migration from Anatolia and the settlement of immigrant Turkmen along northern Iraq, religious scholars were also brought in to preach Hanafi (Sunni) Islam. With loyal Turkmen inhabiting the area, the Ottomans were able to maintain a safe route through to the southern provinces of Mesopotamia. Following the conquest, Kirkuk came firmly under Turkish control and was referred to as "Gökyurt", it is this period in history whereby modern Iraqi Turkmen claim association with Anatolia and the Turkish state.

With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534, followed by Sultan Murad IV's capture of Baghdad in 1638, a large influx of Turks settled down in the region. After defeating the Safavids on December 31, 1534, Suleiman entered Baghdad and set about reconstructing the physical infrastructure in the province and ordered the construction of a dam in Karbala and major water projects in and around the city's countryside. Once the new governor was appointed, the town was to be composed of 1,000 foot soldiers and another 1,000 cavalry. However, war broke out after 89 years of peace and the city was besieged and finally conquered by Abbas the Great in 1624. The Persians ruled the city until 1638 when a massive Ottoman force, led by Sultan Murad IV, recaptured the city. In 1639, the Treaty of Zuhab was signed that gave the Ottomans control over Iraq and ended the military conflict between the two empires. Thus, more Turks arrived with the army of Sultan Murad IV in 1638 following the capture of Baghdad whilst others came even later with other notable Ottoman figures.
Post-Ottoman era

Following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Iraqi Turkmens wanted Turkey to annex the Mosul vilayet and for them to become part of an expanded state; this is because, under the Ottoman monarchy, the Iraqi Turkmens enjoyed a relatively trouble-free existence as the administrative and business classes. However, due to the demise of the Ottoman monarchy, the Iraqi Turkmen participated in elections for the Constituent Assembly; the purpose of these elections was to formalise the 1922 treaty with the British government and obtain support for the drafting of a constitution and the passing of the 1923 Electoral law. The Iraqi Turkmens made their participation in the electoral process conditional on the preservation of the Turkish character of Kirkuk's administration and the recognition of Turkish as the official language of the liwa. Although they were recognized as a constitutive entity of Iraq, alongside the Arabs and Kurds, in the constitution of 1925, the Iraqi Turkmen were later denied this status.
Since the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the Iraqi Turkmen have found themselves increasingly mistreated under successive regimes, such as in the massacres of 1923, 1946, and 1959, and from 1980, when the Ba'th Party targeted the community.
Culture
The Iraqi Turkmens are mostly Muslims and have close cultural and linguistic ties with the Anatolian region of Turkey.
Language


The Iraqi Turkmen dialects fall under the Western Oghuz branch of Turkic languages and are often referred to as "Iraqi Turkmen Turkish" "Iraqi Turkish", and "Iraqi Turkic". The dialects possess their own unique characteristics, but have also been influenced by the historical standards of Ottoman Turkish (which was the official language of administration and lingua franca in Iraq between 1534 and 1920) and neighboring Azerbaijani Turkic. In particular, standard (i.e. Istanbul) Turkish as a prestige language has exerted a profound influence on their dialects; thus, the syntax in Iraqi Turkmen differs sharply from neighboring Irano-Turkic varieties. Collectively, the Iraqi Turkmen dialects also show similarities with Cypriot Turkish and Balkan Turkish regarding modality. The written language of the Iraqi Turkmen is based on Istanbul Turkish using the modern Turkish alphabet.
The Turkish language was recognized as a minority language in Kirkuk and Kifri in 1930, until the revolutionary government introduced the names "Turkman" and "Turkmanja" in 1959 with the aim of politically distancing the Turks of Iraq from Turkey. Then, in 1972, the Iraqi government banned the Turkish language and schools and media using Turkish were prohibited. Further bans on the Turkish language were made in the 1980s when the Baath regime prohibited the Iraqi Turkmens from speaking Turkish in public. It was not until 2005 that the Turkmen dialects were recognized under the Iraqi constitution; since then, the Iraqi Turkmens have opened numerous Turkish schools and media exposure from Turkey has led to the standardisation of their dialects towards Standard Turkish and the preferable language for adolescents associating with the Turkish culture.
Indeed, Iraqi Turkmens themselves (according to the 1957 census), as well as a range of linguistic sources, tend to view their language as a Turkish dialect (of Turkey), which they call Irak Türkmen Türkçesi, Irak Türkçesi, or Irak Türkmencesi. Studies have long noted the similarities between Iraqi Turkmen and certain Southeastern Anatolian dialects around the region of Urfa and Diyarbakır, or have described it as an "Anatolian" or an "Eastern Anatolian dialect". There are also linguists who have said that Iraqi Turkmen is closer to Azerbaijani, placing the Kirkuk dialect as "more or less" an "Azerbaijani Turkish" dialect. Yet, the Kirkuk dialect also shows comparable features with Urfa, and there are other regions in the Kirkuk Governorate, such as Altun Kupri, Taza Khurmatu, and Bashir, which are said to show unity with the Eastern Anatolian dialect of Urfa. Indeed, the dialects spoken in Turkmen-dominated regions in other parts of the country – including Amirli, Kifri, Tal Afar and Tuz Khurmatu – are all said to be similar to the Turkish dialect of Urfa. Hence, there are linguists who acknowledge similarities with Azerbaijani spoken in Iran but say that Iraqi Turkmen has "greater proximity to Turkish of Turkey". According to Christiane Bulut, Iraqi Turkman is neither Azeri nor Anatolian Turkish but "a transitional dialect group, displaying linguistic features similar to both".
Besides their traditional dialects, the Iraqi Turkmen diaspora also communicate in standard (Istanbul) Turkish, whilst the younger generations in Iraq (below the age of 18 in 2019) speak Istanbul Turkish with ease. In addition, diglossia in Iraq Turkmen dialects and Istanbul Turkish has become a widespread phenomenon. Most Iraqi Turkmen can also speak Arabic and/or Kurdish.
Dialects
Due to the existence of different Turkish migration waves to Iraq for over 1,200 years, the Iraqi Turkmen varieties are by no means homogeneous; dialects can vary according to regional features. Several prestige languages in the region have been particularly influential: Ottoman Turkish from 1534 onwards and then Persian after the Capture of Baghdad (1624). Once the Ottoman empire retook Iraq in 1640 the Turkish varieties of Iraq continued to be influenced by Ottoman Turkish, as well as other languages in the region, such as Arabic and Kurdish. Ottoman Turkish had a strong influence in Iraq until 1920, for it was not only the official language of administration but also the lingua franca. Indeed, Turkish has remained a prestige language among Iraqi Turkmen, exerting a profound historical influence on their dialect. As a result, Iraqi Turkmen syntax differs sharply from Irano-Turkic.
In general, the Iraqi Turkmen dialects of Tal Afar (approx 700,000 speakers),Altun Kupri, Tuz Khurmatu, Taza Khurmatu, Kifri, Bashir and Amirli show unity with the Eastern Anatolian dialect of Urfa; meanwhile, the dialects in Kirkuk, Erbil, Dohuk, Mandali and Khanaqin show similarities with Azerbaijani Tabrizi and Afshar Turkic dialects. Yet, the Kirkuk dialect also shows comparable features with Urfa, and 21.4% of Kirkuk province's population had self-declared their mother tongue as "Turkish" in the last census which asked about language. In particular, a cultural orientation towards Turkey prevails among Iraqi Turkmen intellectuals and diglossia (Turkish of Turkey) is very frequent in educated circles, especially in Kirkuk. In addition, the Erbil dialect shows similarities with Turkish dialects stretching from Kosovo to Rize, Erzurum and Malatya.
The Iraqi Turkmen generally also have an active command in standard Turkish due to their cultural orientation towards the Republic of Turkey. Turkish media outlets (especially satellite TV) has been influential; moreover, there are a number of private schools which teach in Turkish backed by Turkish institutions. Thus, diglossia in Iraq Turkmen and standard Turkish (of Turkey) has become a widespread phenomenon.
In 2020, a request to grant ISO 639 code for Iraqi Turkmen was submitted to SIL, but later rejected in 2024 as it doesn't meet the criteria for being a distinct language.
Politicization
Professor Christiane Bulut has argued that publications from Azerbaijan often use expressions such as "Azerbaijani (dialects) of Iraq" or "South Azerbaijani" to describe Iraqi Turkmen dialects "with political implications"; however, in Turcological literature, closely related dialects in Turkey and Iraq are generally referred to as "eastern Anatolian" or "Iraq-Turkic/-Turkman" dialects, respectively.
Furthermore, the terms "Turkmen/Turkman" are also considered to be historically political because in the early 20th century the minority were simply recognized as Turks who spoke the Turkish language, until after the military coup of 14 July 1958, when the ruling military junta introduced the names "Turkman/Turkmen" to distance the Turks of Iraq from those in Anatolia, and then banned the Turkish language in 1972.
Official status
Under the British Mandate over Iraq, the Turkish language was recognized as an official language in Kirkuk and Kifri under Article 5 of the Language Act of 1930. Article 6 of the Act permitted the language of education to be determined by the native language of the majority of students, whilst Article 2 and Article 4 gave Iraqi citizens the right to have court hearings and decisions verbally translated into Arabic, Kurdish, or Turkish in all cases.
Upon Iraq's entry into the League of Nations in 1932, the League demanded that Iraq recognize its ethnic and religious minorities. Consequently, the Turkish language, alongside Kurdish, was to be recognized as an official language under the Iraqi constitution of 1932: "in the liwa of Kirkuk, where a considerable part of the population is of Turkmen race, the official language, side by side with Arabic, shall be either Kurdish or Turkish". According to Article 1, no law, order, or act of government was allowed to contradict the terms of the 1932 constitution, nor could it be changed in the future.
However, in 1959 the military junta introduced the names "Turkman" and "Turkmanja". More recently, Article 4 of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution recognizes "Turkomen" as an official minority language in the "administrative units in which they constitute density of population" (alongside Syriac).
Adoption of the Turkish alphabet
In 1997 the Iraqi Turkmen Congress adopted a Declaration of Principles, Article Three states that "the official written language of the Turkmen is Istanbul Turkish, and its alphabet is the new Latin alphabet." By 2005 the Turkish language replaced traditional Turkmeni, which had used the Arabic script, in Iraqi schools.
Education in Turkish


Iraq's first two Turkmen schools were opened on November 17, 1993, one in Erbil and the other in Kifri.
In 2010 the Turkmen Federation of Scouts (Türkmen Izcilik Federasyonu) was founded, based in Kirkuk.
In 2005 Iraqi Turkmen community leaders decided that the Turkish language would replace the use of traditional Turkmeni in Iraqi schools; Turkmeni had used the Arabic script whereas Turkish uses the Latin script (see Turkish alphabet). Kelsey Shanks has argued that "the move to Turkish can be seen as a means to strengthen the collective "we" identity by continuing to distinguish it from the other ethnic groups. ... The use of Turkish was presented as a natural progression from the Turkmen; any suggestion that the oral languages were different was immediately rejected."
Parental literacy rates in Turkish are low, as most are more familiar with the Arabic script (due to the Ba'athist regime). Therefore, the Turkmen Directorate of Education in Kirkuk has started Turkish language lessons for the wider society. Furthermore, the Turkmen officer for the Ministry of Education in Nineveh has requested from the "United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq" the instigation of Turkish language classes for parents.
Media in Turkish
The current prevalence of satellite television and media exposure from Turkey may have led to the standardisation of Turkmeni towards Turkish, and the preferable language for adolescents associating with the Turkish culture.
In 2004 the Türkmeneli TV channel was launched in Kirkuk, Iraq. It broadcasts programmes in the Turkish and Arabic languages. As of 2012, Türkmeneli TV has studios in Kirkuk and Baghdad in Iraq, and in the Çankaya neighbourhood in Ankara, Turkey. Türkmeneli TV has signed agreements with several Turkish channels, such as TRT, TGRT and ATV, as well as with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus's main broadcaster BRT, to share programmes and documentaries.
Religion
The Iraqi Turkmen are predominantly Muslims. The Sunni Turkmen form the majority (about 60–70%), but there is also a significant number of Turkmen practicing the Shia branch of Islam (about 30% to 40%). Nonetheless, the Turkmen are mainly secular, having internalized the secularist interpretation of state–religion affairs practiced in the Republic of Turkey since its foundation in 1923. Moreover, the fact that the Turkmen mainly live in urban areas, where they deal with trade and commerce, and their tendency to acquire higher education, the power of religious and tribal factors inherent in Iraq's political culture does not significantly affect the Turkmens. A small minority of the Iraqi Turkmens are Catholics, it is estimated their number at about 30,000. They are not to be confused with the Citadel Christians. The Turkmen Bible Partnership translated the New Testament into the Iraqi Turkmen dialect and printed and distributed 2,000 copies of it in 2021. Historically, there was a community of Iraqi Turkmen adhering to extreme Shia beliefs similar to the Qizilbash. They were isolated from the other Iraqi Turkmen Shias and were highly secretive about their beliefs. They eventually converted to mainstream Shia Islam in the 1920s. The Ibrahimiyya was among those sects.
Demographics
Population
Official statistics
The Iraqi Turkmens are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq. According to 2013 data from the Iraqi Ministry of Planning the Iraqi Turkmens have a population of about 3 million out of the total population of about 34.7 million (approximately 9% of the country's population).
Past censuses and controversies

According to Mesut Yeğen, documents from the British Foreign Office claim that the Turkmens made a majority in the city of Erbil in 1919 The 1957 Iraqi census (which is recognized as the last reliable census, as later censuses were reflections of the Arabization policies of the Ba'ath regime) recorded 567,000 Turks out of a total population of 6.3 million, forming 9% of the total Iraqi population. This put them third, behind Arabs and Kurds. However, due to the undemocratic environment, their number has always been underestimated and has long been a point of controversy. For example, in the 1957 census, the Iraqi government first claimed that there was 136,800 Turks in Iraq. However, the revised figure of 567,000 was issued after the 1958 revolution when the Iraqi government admitted that the Iraqi Turkmen population was actually more than 400% from the previous year's total.Scott Taylor has described the political nature of the results thusly:
According to the 1957 census conducted by King Faisal II – a monarch supported by the British – there were only 136,800 Turkmen in all of Iraq. Bearing in mind that since the British had wrested control of Mesopotamia from the Turks after the First World War, a deliberate campaign had been undertaken to eradicate or diminish all remnants of Ottoman influence. Therefore it should not be surprising that after Abdul Karim Kassem launched his successful revolution in 1958 – killing 23-year-old King Faisal II, expelling the British and declaring Iraq a republic – that a different set of numbers was published. According to the second census of 1958, the Turkmen registry stood at 567,000 – an increase of more than 400 per cent from the previous year's total.
Subsequent censuses, in 1967, 1977, 1987 and 1997, are all considered highly unreliable, due to suspicions of manipulation by the various regimes in Iraq. The 1997 census states that there was 600,000 Iraqi Turkmen out of a total population of 22,017,983, forming 2.72% of the total Iraqi population; however, this census only allowed its citizens to indicate belonging to one of two ethnicities, Arab or Kurd, this meant that many Iraqi Turkmen identified themselves as Arabs (the Kurds not being a desirable ethnic group in Saddam Hussein's Iraq), thereby skewing the true number of Iraqi Turkmen.
Other estimates
In 2004 Scott Taylor suggested that the Iraqi Turkmen population accounted for 2,080,000 of Iraq's 25 million inhabitants (forming 8.32% of the population) whilst Patrick Clawson has stated that the Iraqi Turkmen make up about 9% of the total population. Furthermore, international organizations such as the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization has stated that the Iraqi Turkmen community is 3 million or 9–13% of the Iraqi population. Iraqi Turkmen claim that their total population is over 3 million. It is estimated to be 2.7% of total Iraqi population at 2015 by Gulf/2000 Project of Columbia University.
Areas of settlement



The Iraqi Turkmen primarily inhabit northern Iraq, in a region they refer to as "Turkmeneli" which stretches from the northwest to the east at the middle of Iraq. Iraqi Turkmen consider their capital city to be Kirkuk. Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield describe the Turkmeneli region as follows:
...what Turkmens refer to as Turkmeneli – a vast swath of territory running from Iraq's border with Turkey and Syria and diagonally down the country to the border with Iran. Turkmen sources note that Turcomania – an Anglicized version of "Turkmeneli" – appears on a map of the region published by in 1785, but there is no clear reference to Turkmeneli until the end of the twentieth century.
The Iraqi Turkmen generally consider several major cities, and small districts associated with these cities, as part of Turkmeneli. The major cities claimed to be a part of their homeland include: Altun Kupri, Badra, Bakuba, Diala, Erbil, Khanaqin, Kifri, Kirkuk, Kizilribat, Mendeli, Mosul, Salahaldeen, Sancar, Tal Afar, and Tuz Khurmatu. Thus, the Turkmeneli region lies between the Arab areas of settlement to the south and Kurdish areas to the north.
According to the 1957 census the Iraqi Turkmen formed the majority of inhabitants in the city of Kirkuk, with 40% declaring their mother tongue as "Turkish". The second-largest Iraqi Turkmen city is Tel Afar where they make up 95% of the inhabitants. The once mainly Turkoman cities of the Diyala Province such as Kifri have been heavily Kurdified and Arabized.
Some Iraqi Turkmen also live outside the Turkmeneli region. For example, there is a significant community living in Iraq's capital city of Baghdad, especially in the neighbourhoods of Adhamiyah and Ragheba Khatun.
The Turkmen population in Erbil is estimated to be around 300,000. They mainly reside in the neighbourhoods of Taci, Mareke and Three Tak in Erbil's city centre, around the citadel. Until 2006, they were living in the Tophane, Tekke and Saray neighborhoods of the Citadel, which contained almost 700 houses. In 2006, the citadel was emptied, and the Turkmen in the citadel were relocated to other neighbourhoods. Some Turkmen also participate in the political institutions of the KRG, including the Parliament. Erbil's citadel also contains the Turkmen Culture House.

Diaspora

Most Iraqi Turkmens migrate to Turkey, followed by Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. There are also Iraqi Turkmen communities living in Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand,[citation needed]Greece, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
According to Professor Suphi Saatçi, in 2010 approximately 1,000 Iraqi Turkmen were living in Canada, 2,000 in Denmark, and 4,000 in the Netherlands. Since the European migrant crisis (2014–19) the number of Iraqi Turkmen has continued to increase in Europe.
There are many established Iraqi Turkmen diaspora communities, such as the Canadian Iraqi Turkmen Culture Association, based in Canada.
The Turkoman community in Chicago dates from the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War and the Gulf War. They have tended to settle in the northern neighborhoods of the city and in the suburbs, and many have taken jobs as factory workers or cabdrivers. Owing to their small size, they attend the mosques of other communities. They maintain a distinct cultural identity and close ties with brethren outside of Chicago.

Persecution
The position of the Iraqi Turkmen has changed from being administrative and business classes of the Ottoman Empire to an increasingly discriminated against minority. Since the demise of the Ottoman Empire, the Iraqi Turkmen have been victims of several massacres, such as the Kirkuk Massacre of 1959. Furthermore, under the Ba'th party, discrimination against the Iraqi Turkmen increased, with several leaders being executed in 1979 as well as the Iraqi Turkmen community being victims of Arabization policies by the state, and Kurdification by Kurds seeking to push them forcibly out of their homeland. Moreover, the government of Turgut Özal only gave attention to Sunni Turkmen and ignored the Shias. Thus, they have suffered from various degrees of suppression and assimilation that ranged from political persecution and exile to terror and ethnic cleansing. Despite being recognized in the 1925 constitution as a constitutive entity, the Iraqi Turkmen were later denied this status; hence, cultural rights were gradually taken away and activists were sent to exile.
Massacres

1924 Kirkuk massacre
In 1924, the Iraqi Turkmens were seen as a disloyal remnant of the Ottoman Empire, with a natural tie to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's new Turkish nationalist ideology emerging in the Republic of Turkey. The Iraqi Turkmen living in the region of Kirkuk were perceived as posing a threat to the stability of Iraq, particularly as they did not support the ascendancy of King Faisal I to the Iraqi throne. On May 4, these tensions boiled over into violence when soldiers from the Iraq Levies —a levied force raised by the British government after the First World War and consisting primarily of Assyrians — clashed with Turkmen in a Kirkuk market square after a dispute between an Assyrian soldier and a Turkmen shopkeeper. In the ensuing fracas, 200 Turkmen were killed by Assyrian soldiers.
1946 Gavurbağı massacre
Around 20 Iraqi Turkmen civilians were killed by Iraqi policemen including women and children on 12 July 1946 in Gavurbağı, Kirkuk.
1959 Kirkuk massacre
The Kirkuk massacre of 1959 came about due to the Iraqi government allowing the Iraqi Communist Party, which in Kirkuk was largely Kurdish, to target the Iraqi Turkmen. With the appointment of , a Kurd, as the mayor of Kirkuk in July 1959, tensions rose following the 14 July revolution celebrations, with animosity in the city polarizing rapidly between the Kurds and Iraqi Turkmen. On 14 July 1959, skirmishes broke out between the Iraqi Turkmen and Kurds, leaving some 20 Iraqi Turkmen dead. Furthermore, on 15 July 1959, Kurdish soldiers of the of the Iraqi army mortared Iraqi Turkmen residential areas, destroying 120 houses. Order was restored on 17 July by military units from Baghdad. The Iraqi government referred to the incident as a "massacre" and stated that between 31 and 79 Iraqi Turkmen were killed and some 130 injured.
1991 Altun Kupri massacre

Over 135 Turkmen civilians were killed on 28 March 1991 during the Gulf War by Iraqi forces, in the Turkmen town of Altun Kupri.
Arabization
In 1980, Saddam Hussein's government adopted a policy of assimilation of its minorities. Due to government relocation programs, thousands of Iraqi Turkmen were relocated from their traditional homelands in northern Iraq and replaced by Arabs, in an effort to Arabize the region. Furthermore, Iraqi Turkmen villages and towns were destroyed to make way for Arab migrants, who were promised free land and financial incentives. For example, the Ba'th regime recognised that the city of Kirkuk was historically an Iraqi Arab city and remained firmly in its cultural orientation. Thus, the first wave of Arabization saw Arab families move from the centre and south of Iraq into Kirkuk to work in the expanding oil industry. Although the Iraqi Turkmen were not actively forced out, new Arab quarters were established in the city and the overall demographic balance of the city changed as the Arab migrations continued.

Several presidential decrees and directives from state security and intelligence organizations indicate that the Iraqi Turkmen were a particular focus of attention during the assimilation process during the Ba'th regime. For example, the Iraqi Military Intelligence issued directive 1559 on 6 May 1980 ordering the deportation of Iraqi Turkmen officials from Kirkuk, issuing the following instructions: "identify the places where Turkmen officials are working in governmental offices [in order] to deport them to other governorates in order to disperse them and prevent them from concentrating in this governorate [Kirkuk]". In addition, on 30 October 1981, the Revolution's Command Council issued decree 1391, which authorized the deportation of Iraqi Turkmen from Kirkuk with paragraph 13 noting that "this directive is specially aimed at Turkmen and Kurdish officials and workers who are living in Kirkuk".
As primary victims of these Arabization policies, the Iraqi Turkmen suffered from land expropriation and job discrimination, and therefore would register themselves as "Arabs" in order to avoid discrimination. Thus, ethnic cleansing was an element of the Ba'thist policy aimed at reducing the influence of the Iraqi Turkmen in northern Iraq's Kirkuk. Those Iraqi Turkmen who remained in cities such as Kirkuk were subject to continued assimilation policies; school names, neighbourhoods, villages, streets, markets and even mosques with names of Turkic origin were changed to names that emanated from the Ba'th Party or from Arab heroes. Moreover, many Iraqi Turkmen villages and neighbourhoods in Kirkuk were simply demolished, particularly in the 1990s.
Turkmen–Kurdish tension and Kurdification

The Kurds claimed de facto sovereignty over land that Iraqi Turkmen regard as theirs. For the Iraqi Turkmen, their identity is deeply inculcated as the rightful inheritors of the region as a legacy of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, it is claimed that the Kurdistan Region and Iraqi government has constituted a threat to the survival of the Iraqi Turkmen through strategies aimed at eradicating or assimilating them. The formation of the Kurdistan Region in 1991 created high animosity between the Kurds and Iraqi Turkmen, resulting in some Iraqi Turkmen being victims of Kurdification, according to Liam Anderson. The largest concentration of Iraqi Turkmen tended to be in the de facto capital of Erbil, a city which they had assumed prominent administrative and economic positions. Thus, they increasingly came into dispute and often conflict with the ruling powers of the city, which after 1996 was the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani.
According to Anderson and Stansfield, in the 1990s, tension between the Kurds and Iraqi Turkmen inflamed as the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) were institutionalized as the political hegemons of the region and, from the perspective of the Iraqi Turkmen, sought to marginalize them from the positions of authority and to subsume their culture with an all-pervading Kurdistani identity. With the support of Ankara, a new political front of Turkmen parties, the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), was formed on 24 April 1995. The relationship between the Iraqi Turkmen Front and the KDP was tense and deteriorated as the decade went on. Iraqi Turkmen associated with the Iraqi Turkmen Front complained about harassment by Kurdish security forces. In March 2000, the Human Rights Watch reported that the KDP's security attacked the offices of the ITF in Erbil, killing two guards, following a lengthy period of disputes between the two parties. In 2002, the KDP created an Iraqi Turkmen political organization, the Turkmen National Association, that supported the further institutionalization of the Kurdistan Region. This was viewed by pro-ITF Iraqi Turkmen as a deliberate attempt to "buy off" Iraqi Turkmen opposition and break their bonds with Ankara. Promoted by the KDP as the "true voice" of the Iraqi Turkmen, the Turkmen National Association has a pro-Kurdistani stance and has effectively weakened the ITF as the sole representative voice of the Iraqi Turkmen. Beginning in 2003, there were riots between Kurds and Turkmen in Kirkuk, a city that Turkmen view as historically theirs. According to United Nations reports, the KRG and Peshmerga were "illegaily policing Kirkurk, abducting Turkmen and Arabs and subjecting them to torture". Between 2003 and 2006, 1,350 Turkmens in Tal A'far died mainly from sectarian violence and war and thousands of houses were damaged or demolished, resulting in 4,685 displaced families.
Genocide under IS
Politics

Between ten and twelve Turkmen individuals were elected to the transitional National Assembly of Iraq in January 2005, including five on the United Iraqi Alliance list, three from the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF), and either two or four from the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan.
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 Saadeddin Arkej), two or four from the United Iraqi Alliance, one from the Iraqi Accord Front and one from the Kurdistani Alliance.
Iraqi Turkmen have also emerged as a key political force in the controversy over the future status of northern Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. The government of Turkey has helped fund such political organizations as the Iraqi Turkmen Front, which opposes Iraqi federalism and in particular the proposed annexation of Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Tensions between the two groups over Kirkuk, however, have slowly died out and on January 30, 2006, the President of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, said that the "Kurds are working on a plan to give Iraqi Turkmens autonomy in areas where they are a majority in the new constitution they're drafting for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq." However, it never happened and the policies of Kurdification by KDP and PUK after 2003 (with non-Kurds being pressed to move) have prompted serious inter-ethnic problems.
Notable people
- Farah Zeynep Abdullah, Turkish actress
- Jafar al-Askari, former Prime Minister of Iraq (1923–24 and 1926–27)
- Abbas al-Bayati, politician
- Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayati, Iraqi politician
- Yasin al-Hashimi, former Prime Minister of Iraq (1924–25 and 1935–36)
- Khairi Al-Hindawi, poet
- Maruf al Rusafi, poet
- Nuri al-Said, former Prime Minister of Iraq (1930–32, 1938–40, 1941–44, 1946–47, 1949, 1950–52, 1954–57 and 1958)
- Arshad al-Salihi, politician
- Mohammed Abdullah al-Shahwani, Iraqi general
- Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi, Iraqi poet
- Saadeddin Arkej, politician
- Selim Bayraktar, Turkish actor
- Ahmet bin Carlak, considered the first environmentalist in Turkey and called the "Tarzan of Manisa"
- Kamil Chadirji, Iraqi politician
- Rifat Chadirji, Iraqi architect
- David Chokachi, American actor
- Hijri Dede, poet
- İhsan Doğramacı, founder of Bilkent University and Hacettepe University
- Esad Erbili, Sufi sheikh
- Fuzûlî, 16th century poet, writer and thinker
- Gökböri, leading emir and general
- Amine Gülşe, Swedish model; crowned Miss Turkey (2014) and actress
- Muhammad Sadiq Hassan, Iraqi poet
- İsmet Hürmüzlü, Turkish actor
- Jasim Mohammed Jaafar, Minister for Youth & Sports
- Jijak, mother of the caliph al-Muktafi
- Gökhan Kırdar, Turkish musician
- Sayyida Zumurrud Khatun, was the mother of Abbasid caliph al-Nasir
- Lütfi Kırdar, Turkish politician
- Nemir Kirdar, billionaire businessman
- Fathi Safwat Kirdar, Iraqi painter and sculptor
- Rena Kirdar, author and socialite
- Üner Kırdar, Turkish diplomat and senior United Nations official
- , Minister of State in Iraq (2020–present)
- Hidir Lutfi, poet
- Younis Mahmoud, football player
- , winner of Miss Germany (1996)
- Reha Muhtar, Turkish television personality
- Talib Mushtaq, poet and diplomat
- Zahra mother of Al-Mustansir I
- Salih Neftçi, Turkish economist
- Rashad Mandan Omar, Minister of Science and Technology (2003)
- Hasan Rıza Pasha, Ottoman general
- Maridah bint Shabib, wife of Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid and mother of eighth Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim
- Fahmi Said, army officer
- Amel Senan, actress
- Hikmat Sulayman, former Prime Minister of Iraq (1936–37)
- Mehmet Türkmehmet, football player
- Ali Saip Ursavaş, Turkish politician
- , American actor
- Imad al-Din Zengi, ruler of the Zengid dynasty
- Gökhan Kırdar, musician
See also
- Turkmeneli
- Turkish minorities in the former Ottoman Empire
- Turks in the Arab world
- Syrian Turkmen
- Turks in Lebanon
- Demographics of Iraq
- Minorities in Iraq
- Human rights in post-invasion Iraq
- Iraqi Turkmen Front
- 2009 Taza bombing
- 16th Turkmen Brigade
- Iraq–Turkey relations
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Peki, bu durumda Irak'ta yaşayan 4 milyon Türk ne ile karşılaşacak?
[So, what will the 4 million Turks living in Iraq face in this case?] - Sari, Esra (2020). "Irak'ta 5 milyon Türkmen yaşıyor" [5 million Turkmen live in Iraq] (in Turkish). Ticari Hayat. Archived from the original on 26 October 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
Irak'ta yaklaşık 5 milyon Türkmen yaşamaktadır.
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[As a result, Iraqi-Turkish is closer to Turkey-Turkish here – as is the case with some other characteristics.] - Map: "The Turkic Language Family", Turkic Languages Journal
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{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - Hann, Geoff (2015). Iraq: The ancient sites and Iraqi Kurdistan. Bradt Travel Guides. ISBN 9781841624884.
There are estimated to be some three million Turkmen in Iraq, but despite ... There are also about 30,000 Christian 'Catholic'Turks and some Jews living in Iraq...
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Kerkük Vakfı Genel Sekreteri Prof. Dr. Suphi Saatçi'nin verdiği rakamlara göre, yaklaşık olarak Kanada'da 1000, Danimarka'da 2000, Hollanda'da ise 4000'e yakın Türkmen'in yaşadığı ve Türkiye üzerinden bu ülkelere göç ettiği bilinmektedir.
[Kirkuk Foundation Secretary General Prof. Dr. According to the figures given by Suphi Saatçi, it is known that approximately 1000 Turkmen live in Canada, 2000 in Denmark, and close to 4000 in the Netherlands and immigrated to these countries via Turkey.] - "Canadian Iraqi Turkmen Culture Association (CITCAL)". Canadian Iraqi Turkmen Culture Association (CITCAL). Retrieved 26 October 2021.
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Chokachi is not from Japan. He has Turkish and Finnish ancestry and grew up in Plymouth, where his dad is a renowned surgeon. David attended Tabor Academy, where he played lacrosse and football, then Bates College in Maine, where he earned a bachelor's in political science. But he still hadn't found his calling; he said he was like so many young people unsure of their path in life.
also in: Wilcox, Emily (2008), Plymouth TV star says 'yes' to studio, The State Journal-Register, retrieved 9 December 2020,Chokachi is not from Japan. He has Turkish and Finnish ancestry and grew up in Plymouth, where his dad is a renowned surgeon.
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Türkiye doğumlu Iraklı bir baba ve Finlandiyalı bir anneden dünyaya gelen Chokachi, Marion, Massachusetts'te Tabor Acedemy'de eğitim aldı. Bates College'de siyaset bilimi bölümünden mezun oldu.
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Mister Chokachi... is of Turkish and Finnish extract.
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Yasemin Mansoor (Jahrgang 1979) ist Miss Germany 1996. Die damals 16-Jährige brach brach den Rekord als jüngste gewinnerin des schönheitswettbewerbs. Später arbeitete die Tochter irakisch-türkischer Immigranten als Fotomodell und produzierte Popmusik mit der Mädchenband "4 Unique...
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Fahmi Said was from Sulaymaniyya, his father an Arab from the Anbak tribe situated near the Tigris and his mother was of Turkish origin.
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External links
Media related to Iraqi Turkmen at Wikimedia Commons
The Iraqi Turkmen also spelled as Turkoman and Turcoman Turkish Irak Turkmenleri عراق توركمنلری also referred to as Iraqi Turks Turkish Iraqis the Turkish minority in Iraq and the Iraqi Turkish minority Arabic تركمان العراق romanized Turkuman al ʻIraq Turkish Irak Turkleri عراق توركلری Kurdish تورکمانی عێراق Turkmani Eraq are Iraq s third largest ethnic group They make up to 10 13 of the Iraqi population and are native to northern Iraq Iraqi Turkmen share ties with Turkish people and do not identify with the Turkmen of Turkmenistan and Central Asia Iraqi TurkmenIrak TurkmenleriFlag of TurkmeneliTotal population3 million 2013 Iraqi Ministry of Planning estimate Estimated 4 million to 5 million or 10 13 of the Iraqi population in 2020 21 Regions with significant populationsPredominantly in the Turkmeneli region Governorates of Kirkuk Erbil Nineveh Saladin and DiyalaLanguagesTurkmen dialect Also Iraqi Arabic Kurdish Standard TurkishReligionPredominantly Islam 60 70 Sunni 30 40 Shia Small minority Christianity Catholic EthnonymsAccording to Iraqi Turkmen scholar Professor Suphi Saatci prior to the mid 20th century the Turkmens in Iraq were known simply as Turks It was not until after the military coup of July 14 1958 that the ruling military junta officially introduced the name Turkman Turkmen the political goal of the Iraqi government was to distinguish the Iraqi Turkmen from other Turks in Anatolia just as the Greek government used the name Muslim minority for those Turks living within the borders of Greece The state imposed terms on the Turks of Iraq were not resisted for the word Turkmen had historically been designated to the Oghuz Turks who had accepted Islam and migrated westwards from Central Asia to the Middle East and had continued to be used in the region Thus the Iraqi Turkmen as well as the Syrian Turkmens and Anatolian Turkmens do not identify themselves with the Turkmen people of Turkmenistan Rather the term Turkmen in the Middle East is often used to designate Turkic speakers particularly in the Arab areas or where Sunni Turks live in Shiite dominated areas Despite the modern usage of the term Turkmen Professor David Kushner has pointed out that the term Turks continues to be used in referring to the Outside Turks of the former Ottoman Empire including the Turks in Iraq which is in contrast to the terms used for other Turkic peoples who did not share this Ottoman history Generally one may distinguish between the closer communities to Turkey of Turks in Cyprus Greece Bulgaria and Iraq on the one hand and the more distant ones in Iran the Soviet Union and China on the other even the term Turks is selectively used It is habitually used in reference to the closer Turkish communities while the others are commonly referred to by their own particular names i e Azeris Turkestanis etc More important perhaps than the legal factor has been the historical and cultural identity of the Turks in Cyprus Greece Bulgaria and Iraq with the Turks of Turkey Not only are these communities geographically adjacent to the Turks but they have all shared the Ottoman past speak more or less the same language and are predominantly Sunni In literature Professor Orit Bashkin has observed that within Iraqi Turkmen literature poets have managed to remain loyal to Iraq as a state whilst they have also concurrently upheld their Turkish distinctiveness For Mustafa Gokkaya b 1910 this signified that his community was Muslim and that my father is Turk and the homeland is my mother For Resit Ali Dakuklu b 1918 being part of the Turks of Iraq signified maintaining brotherly relations with every nation being united with Iraq while speaking in Turkish Universal and local Iraqi and Turkish at the same time the Turkoman poets were willing to serve their nation yet unwilling to neglect their culture and their Turkishness HistorySuleiman the Magnificent defeated the Safavids on December 31 1534 gaining Baghdad and later southern Iraq Throughout the Ottoman reign the Ottomans encouraged Turkish migration along northern Iraq Origin The exact origin of the Iraqi Turkmen is uncertain but several possible explanations and theories of settlement in the region indicate that they likely originally emerged in Iraq as garrisons established by multiple rulers in various time periods The Iraqi Turkmen are believed to be the descendants of various waves of Turkic settlement in Mesopotamia beginning from the 7th century until the end of Ottoman rule 1919 The first wave of migration dates back to the 7th century followed by migrations during the Seljuk Empire 1037 1194 the fleeing Oghuz during the Mongol destruction of the Khwarazmian dynasty see Kara Koyunlu and Ag Qoyunlu and the largest migration during the Ottoman Empire 1535 1919 With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534 followed by Sultan Murad IV s capture of Baghdad in 1638 a large influx of Turks predominantly from Anatolia settled down in Iraq It is believed that many of today s Iraqi Turkmen are the descendants of the Ottoman soldiers traders and civil servants who were brought into Iraq during the rule of the Ottoman Empire Migration under Arab rule The presence of Turkic peoples in what is today Iraq first began in the 7th century when approximately 2 000 5 000Oghuz Turks were recruited in the Muslim armies of Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad They arrived in 674 with the Umayyud conquest of Basra More Turkic troops settled during the 8th century from Bukhara to Basra and also Baghdad During the subsequent Abbasid era thousands more of Turkmen warriors were brought into Iraq however the number of Turkmen who had settled in Iraq were not significant as a result the first wave of Turkmen became assimilated into the local Arab population Seljuk migration The second wave of Turkmens to descend on Iraq were the Turks of the Great Seljuq Empire Large scale migration of the Turkmen in Iraq occurred in 1055 with the invasion of Sultan Tugrul Bey the second ruler of the Seljuk dynasty who intended to repair the holy road to Mecca For the next 150 years the Seljuk Turks placed large Turkmen communities along the most valuable routes of northern Iraq especially Tal Afar Erbil Kirkuk and Mandali which is now identified by the modern community as Turkmeneli Many of these settlers assumed positions of military and administrative responsibilities in the Seljuk Empire Ottoman migration A large influx of Turks continued to settle in Iraq once Murad IV recaptured Baghdad in 1638 The third and largest wave of Turkmen migration to Iraq arose during the four centuries of Ottoman rule 1535 1919 By the first half of the sixteenth century the Ottomans had begun their expansion into Iraq waging wars against their arch rival the Persian Safavids In 1534 under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent Mosul was sufficiently secure within the Ottoman Empire and became the chief province eyalet responsible for all other administrative districts in the region The Ottomans encouraged migration from Anatolia and the settlement of immigrant Turkmen along northern Iraq religious scholars were also brought in to preach Hanafi Sunni Islam With loyal Turkmen inhabiting the area the Ottomans were able to maintain a safe route through to the southern provinces of Mesopotamia Following the conquest Kirkuk came firmly under Turkish control and was referred to as Gokyurt it is this period in history whereby modern Iraqi Turkmen claim association with Anatolia and the Turkish state The Mosul vilayet With the conquest of Iraq by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1534 followed by Sultan Murad IV s capture of Baghdad in 1638 a large influx of Turks settled down in the region After defeating the Safavids on December 31 1534 Suleiman entered Baghdad and set about reconstructing the physical infrastructure in the province and ordered the construction of a dam in Karbala and major water projects in and around the city s countryside Once the new governor was appointed the town was to be composed of 1 000 foot soldiers and another 1 000 cavalry However war broke out after 89 years of peace and the city was besieged and finally conquered by Abbas the Great in 1624 The Persians ruled the city until 1638 when a massive Ottoman force led by Sultan Murad IV recaptured the city In 1639 the Treaty of Zuhab was signed that gave the Ottomans control over Iraq and ended the military conflict between the two empires Thus more Turks arrived with the army of Sultan Murad IV in 1638 following the capture of Baghdad whilst others came even later with other notable Ottoman figures Post Ottoman era The Misak i Milli national oath sought to include the Mosul vilayet in the proposals for the new borders of a Turkish nation in 1920 Following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 the Iraqi Turkmens wanted Turkey to annex the Mosul vilayet and for them to become part of an expanded state this is because under the Ottoman monarchy the Iraqi Turkmens enjoyed a relatively trouble free existence as the administrative and business classes However due to the demise of the Ottoman monarchy the Iraqi Turkmen participated in elections for the Constituent Assembly the purpose of these elections was to formalise the 1922 treaty with the British government and obtain support for the drafting of a constitution and the passing of the 1923 Electoral law The Iraqi Turkmens made their participation in the electoral process conditional on the preservation of the Turkish character of Kirkuk s administration and the recognition of Turkish as the official language of the liwa Although they were recognized as a constitutive entity of Iraq alongside the Arabs and Kurds in the constitution of 1925 the Iraqi Turkmen were later denied this status Since the demise of the Ottoman Empire the Iraqi Turkmen have found themselves increasingly mistreated under successive regimes such as in the massacres of 1923 1946 and 1959 and from 1980 when the Ba th Party targeted the community CultureThe Iraqi Turkmens are mostly Muslims and have close cultural and linguistic ties with the Anatolian region of Turkey Language Bilingual sign Arabic and Turkish of a Turkmen village Bilingual sign Arabic and Turkish of a Turkmen village The Iraqi Turkmen dialects fall under the Western Oghuz branch of Turkic languages and are often referred to as Iraqi Turkmen Turkish Iraqi Turkish and Iraqi Turkic The dialects possess their own unique characteristics but have also been influenced by the historical standards of Ottoman Turkish which was the official language of administration and lingua franca in Iraq between 1534 and 1920 and neighboring Azerbaijani Turkic In particular standard i e Istanbul Turkish as a prestige language has exerted a profound influence on their dialects thus the syntax in Iraqi Turkmen differs sharply from neighboring Irano Turkic varieties Collectively the Iraqi Turkmen dialects also show similarities with Cypriot Turkish and Balkan Turkish regarding modality The written language of the Iraqi Turkmen is based on Istanbul Turkish using the modern Turkish alphabet The Turkish language was recognized as a minority language in Kirkuk and Kifri in 1930 until the revolutionary government introduced the names Turkman and Turkmanja in 1959 with the aim of politically distancing the Turks of Iraq from Turkey Then in 1972 the Iraqi government banned the Turkish language and schools and media using Turkish were prohibited Further bans on the Turkish language were made in the 1980s when the Baath regime prohibited the Iraqi Turkmens from speaking Turkish in public It was not until 2005 that the Turkmen dialects were recognized under the Iraqi constitution since then the Iraqi Turkmens have opened numerous Turkish schools and media exposure from Turkey has led to the standardisation of their dialects towards Standard Turkish and the preferable language for adolescents associating with the Turkish culture Indeed Iraqi Turkmens themselves according to the 1957 census as well as a range of linguistic sources tend to view their language as a Turkish dialect of Turkey which they call Irak Turkmen Turkcesi Irak Turkcesi or Irak Turkmencesi Studies have long noted the similarities between Iraqi Turkmen and certain Southeastern Anatolian dialects around the region of Urfa and Diyarbakir or have described it as an Anatolian or an Eastern Anatolian dialect There are also linguists who have said that Iraqi Turkmen is closer to Azerbaijani placing the Kirkuk dialect as more or less an Azerbaijani Turkish dialect Yet the Kirkuk dialect also shows comparable features with Urfa and there are other regions in the Kirkuk Governorate such as Altun Kupri Taza Khurmatu and Bashir which are said to show unity with the Eastern Anatolian dialect of Urfa Indeed the dialects spoken in Turkmen dominated regions in other parts of the country including Amirli Kifri Tal Afar and Tuz Khurmatu are all said to be similar to the Turkish dialect of Urfa Hence there are linguists who acknowledge similarities with Azerbaijani spoken in Iran but say that Iraqi Turkmen has greater proximity to Turkish of Turkey According to Christiane Bulut Iraqi Turkman is neither Azeri nor Anatolian Turkish but a transitional dialect group displaying linguistic features similar to both Besides their traditional dialects the Iraqi Turkmen diaspora also communicate in standard Istanbul Turkish whilst the younger generations in Iraq below the age of 18 in 2019 speak Istanbul Turkish with ease In addition diglossia in Iraq Turkmen dialects and Istanbul Turkish has become a widespread phenomenon Most Iraqi Turkmen can also speak Arabic and or Kurdish Dialects Due to the existence of different Turkish migration waves to Iraq for over 1 200 years the Iraqi Turkmen varieties are by no means homogeneous dialects can vary according to regional features Several prestige languages in the region have been particularly influential Ottoman Turkish from 1534 onwards and then Persian after the Capture of Baghdad 1624 Once the Ottoman empire retook Iraq in 1640 the Turkish varieties of Iraq continued to be influenced by Ottoman Turkish as well as other languages in the region such as Arabic and Kurdish Ottoman Turkish had a strong influence in Iraq until 1920 for it was not only the official language of administration but also the lingua franca Indeed Turkish has remained a prestige language among Iraqi Turkmen exerting a profound historical influence on their dialect As a result Iraqi Turkmen syntax differs sharply from Irano Turkic In general the Iraqi Turkmen dialects of Tal Afar approx 700 000 speakers Altun Kupri Tuz Khurmatu Taza Khurmatu Kifri Bashir and Amirli show unity with the Eastern Anatolian dialect of Urfa meanwhile the dialects in Kirkuk Erbil Dohuk Mandali and Khanaqin show similarities with Azerbaijani Tabrizi and Afshar Turkic dialects Yet the Kirkuk dialect also shows comparable features with Urfa and 21 4 of Kirkuk province s population had self declared their mother tongue as Turkish in the last census which asked about language In particular a cultural orientation towards Turkey prevails among Iraqi Turkmen intellectuals and diglossia Turkish of Turkey is very frequent in educated circles especially in Kirkuk In addition the Erbil dialect shows similarities with Turkish dialects stretching from Kosovo to Rize Erzurum and Malatya The Iraqi Turkmen generally also have an active command in standard Turkish due to their cultural orientation towards the Republic of Turkey Turkish media outlets especially satellite TV has been influential moreover there are a number of private schools which teach in Turkish backed by Turkish institutions Thus diglossia in Iraq Turkmen and standard Turkish of Turkey has become a widespread phenomenon In 2020 a request to grant ISO 639 code for Iraqi Turkmen was submitted to SIL but later rejected in 2024 as it doesn t meet the criteria for being a distinct language Politicization Professor Christiane Bulut has argued that publications from Azerbaijan often use expressions such as Azerbaijani dialects of Iraq or South Azerbaijani to describe Iraqi Turkmen dialects with political implications however in Turcological literature closely related dialects in Turkey and Iraq are generally referred to as eastern Anatolian or Iraq Turkic Turkman dialects respectively Furthermore the terms Turkmen Turkman are also considered to be historically political because in the early 20th century the minority were simply recognized as Turks who spoke the Turkish language until after the military coup of 14 July 1958 when the ruling military junta introduced the names Turkman Turkmen to distance the Turks of Iraq from those in Anatolia and then banned the Turkish language in 1972 Official status Under the British Mandate over Iraq the Turkish language was recognized as an official language in Kirkuk and Kifri under Article 5 of the Language Act of 1930 Article 6 of the Act permitted the language of education to be determined by the native language of the majority of students whilst Article 2 and Article 4 gave Iraqi citizens the right to have court hearings and decisions verbally translated into Arabic Kurdish or Turkish in all cases Upon Iraq s entry into the League of Nations in 1932 the League demanded that Iraq recognize its ethnic and religious minorities Consequently the Turkish language alongside Kurdish was to be recognized as an official language under the Iraqi constitution of 1932 in the liwa of Kirkuk where a considerable part of the population is of Turkmen race the official language side by side with Arabic shall be either Kurdish or Turkish According to Article 1 no law order or act of government was allowed to contradict the terms of the 1932 constitution nor could it be changed in the future However in 1959 the military junta introduced the names Turkman and Turkmanja More recently Article 4 of the 2005 Iraqi Constitution recognizes Turkomen as an official minority language in the administrative units in which they constitute density of population alongside Syriac Adoption of the Turkish alphabet In 1997 the Iraqi Turkmen Congress adopted a Declaration of Principles Article Three states that the official written language of the Turkmen is Istanbul Turkish and its alphabet is the new Latin alphabet By 2005 the Turkish language replaced traditional Turkmeni which had used the Arabic script in Iraqi schools Education in Turkish Bilingual sign Arabic and Turkish of an Iraqi Turkmen boys intermediate school Bilingual sign Arabic and Turkish of an Iraqi Turkmen girls intermediate school Iraq s first two Turkmen schools were opened on November 17 1993 one in Erbil and the other in Kifri In 2010 the Turkmen Federation of Scouts Turkmen Izcilik Federasyonu was founded based in Kirkuk In 2005 Iraqi Turkmen community leaders decided that the Turkish language would replace the use of traditional Turkmeni in Iraqi schools Turkmeni had used the Arabic script whereas Turkish uses the Latin script see Turkish alphabet Kelsey Shanks has argued that the move to Turkish can be seen as a means to strengthen the collective we identity by continuing to distinguish it from the other ethnic groups The use of Turkish was presented as a natural progression from the Turkmen any suggestion that the oral languages were different was immediately rejected Parental literacy rates in Turkish are low as most are more familiar with the Arabic script due to the Ba athist regime Therefore the Turkmen Directorate of Education in Kirkuk has started Turkish language lessons for the wider society Furthermore the Turkmen officer for the Ministry of Education in Nineveh has requested from the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq the instigation of Turkish language classes for parents Media in Turkish The current prevalence of satellite television and media exposure from Turkey may have led to the standardisation of Turkmeni towards Turkish and the preferable language for adolescents associating with the Turkish culture In 2004 the Turkmeneli TV channel was launched in Kirkuk Iraq It broadcasts programmes in the Turkish and Arabic languages As of 2012 Turkmeneli TV has studios in Kirkuk and Baghdad in Iraq and in the Cankaya neighbourhood in Ankara Turkey Turkmeneli TV has signed agreements with several Turkish channels such as TRT TGRT and ATV as well as with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus s main broadcaster BRT to share programmes and documentaries Religion The Iraqi Turkmen are predominantly Muslims The Sunni Turkmen form the majority about 60 70 but there is also a significant number of Turkmen practicing the Shia branch of Islam about 30 to 40 Nonetheless the Turkmen are mainly secular having internalized the secularist interpretation of state religion affairs practiced in the Republic of Turkey since its foundation in 1923 Moreover the fact that the Turkmen mainly live in urban areas where they deal with trade and commerce and their tendency to acquire higher education the power of religious and tribal factors inherent in Iraq s political culture does not significantly affect the Turkmens A small minority of the Iraqi Turkmens are Catholics it is estimated their number at about 30 000 They are not to be confused with the Citadel Christians The Turkmen Bible Partnership translated the New Testament into the Iraqi Turkmen dialect and printed and distributed 2 000 copies of it in 2021 Historically there was a community of Iraqi Turkmen adhering to extreme Shia beliefs similar to the Qizilbash They were isolated from the other Iraqi Turkmen Shias and were highly secretive about their beliefs They eventually converted to mainstream Shia Islam in the 1920s The Ibrahimiyya was among those sects DemographicsPopulation Official statistics The Iraqi Turkmens are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq According to 2013 data from the Iraqi Ministry of Planning the Iraqi Turkmens have a population of about 3 million out of the total population of about 34 7 million approximately 9 of the country s population Past censuses and controversies An Iraqi Turkmen in Kirkuk According to Mesut Yegen documents from the British Foreign Office claim that the Turkmens made a majority in the city of Erbil in 1919 The 1957 Iraqi census which is recognized as the last reliable census as later censuses were reflections of the Arabization policies of the Ba ath regime recorded 567 000 Turks out of a total population of 6 3 million forming 9 of the total Iraqi population This put them third behind Arabs and Kurds However due to the undemocratic environment their number has always been underestimated and has long been a point of controversy For example in the 1957 census the Iraqi government first claimed that there was 136 800 Turks in Iraq However the revised figure of 567 000 was issued after the 1958 revolution when the Iraqi government admitted that the Iraqi Turkmen population was actually more than 400 from the previous year s total Scott Taylor has described the political nature of the results thusly According to the 1957 census conducted by King Faisal II a monarch supported by the British there were only 136 800 Turkmen in all of Iraq Bearing in mind that since the British had wrested control of Mesopotamia from the Turks after the First World War a deliberate campaign had been undertaken to eradicate or diminish all remnants of Ottoman influence Therefore it should not be surprising that after Abdul Karim Kassem launched his successful revolution in 1958 killing 23 year old King Faisal II expelling the British and declaring Iraq a republic that a different set of numbers was published According to the second census of 1958 the Turkmen registry stood at 567 000 an increase of more than 400 per cent from the previous year s total Subsequent censuses in 1967 1977 1987 and 1997 are all considered highly unreliable due to suspicions of manipulation by the various regimes in Iraq The 1997 census states that there was 600 000 Iraqi Turkmen out of a total population of 22 017 983 forming 2 72 of the total Iraqi population however this census only allowed its citizens to indicate belonging to one of two ethnicities Arab or Kurd this meant that many Iraqi Turkmen identified themselves as Arabs the Kurds not being a desirable ethnic group in Saddam Hussein s Iraq thereby skewing the true number of Iraqi Turkmen Other estimates In 2004 Scott Taylor suggested that the Iraqi Turkmen population accounted for 2 080 000 of Iraq s 25 million inhabitants forming 8 32 of the population whilst Patrick Clawson has stated that the Iraqi Turkmen make up about 9 of the total population Furthermore international organizations such as the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization has stated that the Iraqi Turkmen community is 3 million or 9 13 of the Iraqi population Iraqi Turkmen claim that their total population is over 3 million It is estimated to be 2 7 of total Iraqi population at 2015 by Gulf 2000 Project of Columbia University Areas of settlement A map of Turkmeneli Turkish Turkmeneli on a monument in Altun Kupri Turkish Altinkopru An Iraqi Turkmen youth holding a Turkmeneli scarf An Iraqi Turkmen woman in Istanbul Turkey The Iraqi Turkmen primarily inhabit northern Iraq in a region they refer to as Turkmeneli which stretches from the northwest to the east at the middle of Iraq Iraqi Turkmen consider their capital city to be Kirkuk Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield describe the Turkmeneli region as follows what Turkmens refer to as Turkmeneli a vast swath of territory running from Iraq s border with Turkey and Syria and diagonally down the country to the border with Iran Turkmen sources note that Turcomania an Anglicized version of Turkmeneli appears on a map of the region published by in 1785 but there is no clear reference to Turkmeneli until the end of the twentieth century The Iraqi Turkmen generally consider several major cities and small districts associated with these cities as part of Turkmeneli The major cities claimed to be a part of their homeland include Altun Kupri Badra Bakuba Diala Erbil Khanaqin Kifri Kirkuk Kizilribat Mendeli Mosul Salahaldeen Sancar Tal Afar and Tuz Khurmatu Thus the Turkmeneli region lies between the Arab areas of settlement to the south and Kurdish areas to the north According to the 1957 census the Iraqi Turkmen formed the majority of inhabitants in the city of Kirkuk with 40 declaring their mother tongue as Turkish The second largest Iraqi Turkmen city is Tel Afar where they make up 95 of the inhabitants The once mainly Turkoman cities of the Diyala Province such as Kifri have been heavily Kurdified and Arabized Some Iraqi Turkmen also live outside the Turkmeneli region For example there is a significant community living in Iraq s capital city of Baghdad especially in the neighbourhoods of Adhamiyah and Ragheba Khatun The Turkmen population in Erbil is estimated to be around 300 000 They mainly reside in the neighbourhoods of Taci Mareke and Three Tak in Erbil s city centre around the citadel Until 2006 they were living in the Tophane Tekke and Saray neighborhoods of the Citadel which contained almost 700 houses In 2006 the citadel was emptied and the Turkmen in the citadel were relocated to other neighbourhoods Some Turkmen also participate in the political institutions of the KRG including the Parliament Erbil s citadel also contains the Turkmen Culture House An Iraqi Turkmen protest in Amsterdam the Netherlands Diaspora Iraqi Turkmen children waving Turkmen flags Most Iraqi Turkmens migrate to Turkey followed by Germany Denmark and Sweden There are also Iraqi Turkmen communities living in Canada the United States Australia New Zealand citation needed Greece the Netherlands and the United Kingdom According to Professor Suphi Saatci in 2010 approximately 1 000 Iraqi Turkmen were living in Canada 2 000 in Denmark and 4 000 in the Netherlands Since the European migrant crisis 2014 19 the number of Iraqi Turkmen has continued to increase in Europe There are many established Iraqi Turkmen diaspora communities such as the Canadian Iraqi Turkmen Culture Association based in Canada The Turkoman community in Chicago dates from the aftermath of the Iran Iraq War and the Gulf War They have tended to settle in the northern neighborhoods of the city and in the suburbs and many have taken jobs as factory workers or cabdrivers Owing to their small size they attend the mosques of other communities They maintain a distinct cultural identity and close ties with brethren outside of Chicago Iraqi Turkmen man in traditional clothes bearing a Turkmen flag PersecutionThe position of the Iraqi Turkmen has changed from being administrative and business classes of the Ottoman Empire to an increasingly discriminated against minority Since the demise of the Ottoman Empire the Iraqi Turkmen have been victims of several massacres such as the Kirkuk Massacre of 1959 Furthermore under the Ba th party discrimination against the Iraqi Turkmen increased with several leaders being executed in 1979 as well as the Iraqi Turkmen community being victims of Arabization policies by the state and Kurdification by Kurds seeking to push them forcibly out of their homeland Moreover the government of Turgut Ozal only gave attention to Sunni Turkmen and ignored the Shias Thus they have suffered from various degrees of suppression and assimilation that ranged from political persecution and exile to terror and ethnic cleansing Despite being recognized in the 1925 constitution as a constitutive entity the Iraqi Turkmen were later denied this status hence cultural rights were gradually taken away and activists were sent to exile Massacres Iraqi Turkmen cemetery 1924 Kirkuk massacre In 1924 the Iraqi Turkmens were seen as a disloyal remnant of the Ottoman Empire with a natural tie to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk s new Turkish nationalist ideology emerging in the Republic of Turkey The Iraqi Turkmen living in the region of Kirkuk were perceived as posing a threat to the stability of Iraq particularly as they did not support the ascendancy of King Faisal I to the Iraqi throne On May 4 these tensions boiled over into violence when soldiers from the Iraq Levies a levied force raised by the British government after the First World War and consisting primarily of Assyrians clashed with Turkmen in a Kirkuk market square after a dispute between an Assyrian soldier and a Turkmen shopkeeper In the ensuing fracas 200 Turkmen were killed by Assyrian soldiers 1946 Gavurbagi massacre Around 20 Iraqi Turkmen civilians were killed by Iraqi policemen including women and children on 12 July 1946 in Gavurbagi Kirkuk 1959 Kirkuk massacre The Kirkuk massacre of 1959 came about due to the Iraqi government allowing the Iraqi Communist Party which in Kirkuk was largely Kurdish to target the Iraqi Turkmen With the appointment of a Kurd as the mayor of Kirkuk in July 1959 tensions rose following the 14 July revolution celebrations with animosity in the city polarizing rapidly between the Kurds and Iraqi Turkmen On 14 July 1959 skirmishes broke out between the Iraqi Turkmen and Kurds leaving some 20 Iraqi Turkmen dead Furthermore on 15 July 1959 Kurdish soldiers of the of the Iraqi army mortared Iraqi Turkmen residential areas destroying 120 houses Order was restored on 17 July by military units from Baghdad The Iraqi government referred to the incident as a massacre and stated that between 31 and 79 Iraqi Turkmen were killed and some 130 injured 1991 Altun Kupri massacre Local resident wearing traditional Turkmen clothes in Altun Kupri Over 135 Turkmen civilians were killed on 28 March 1991 during the Gulf War by Iraqi forces in the Turkmen town of Altun Kupri Arabization In 1980 Saddam Hussein s government adopted a policy of assimilation of its minorities Due to government relocation programs thousands of Iraqi Turkmen were relocated from their traditional homelands in northern Iraq and replaced by Arabs in an effort to Arabize the region Furthermore Iraqi Turkmen villages and towns were destroyed to make way for Arab migrants who were promised free land and financial incentives For example the Ba th regime recognised that the city of Kirkuk was historically an Iraqi Arab city and remained firmly in its cultural orientation Thus the first wave of Arabization saw Arab families move from the centre and south of Iraq into Kirkuk to work in the expanding oil industry Although the Iraqi Turkmen were not actively forced out new Arab quarters were established in the city and the overall demographic balance of the city changed as the Arab migrations continued Iraqi Turkmen protesting in Amsterdam the banner reads Kirkuk is an Iraqi city with Turkmen characteristics Several presidential decrees and directives from state security and intelligence organizations indicate that the Iraqi Turkmen were a particular focus of attention during the assimilation process during the Ba th regime For example the Iraqi Military Intelligence issued directive 1559 on 6 May 1980 ordering the deportation of Iraqi Turkmen officials from Kirkuk issuing the following instructions identify the places where Turkmen officials are working in governmental offices in order to deport them to other governorates in order to disperse them and prevent them from concentrating in this governorate Kirkuk In addition on 30 October 1981 the Revolution s Command Council issued decree 1391 which authorized the deportation of Iraqi Turkmen from Kirkuk with paragraph 13 noting that this directive is specially aimed at Turkmen and Kurdish officials and workers who are living in Kirkuk As primary victims of these Arabization policies the Iraqi Turkmen suffered from land expropriation and job discrimination and therefore would register themselves as Arabs in order to avoid discrimination Thus ethnic cleansing was an element of the Ba thist policy aimed at reducing the influence of the Iraqi Turkmen in northern Iraq s Kirkuk Those Iraqi Turkmen who remained in cities such as Kirkuk were subject to continued assimilation policies school names neighbourhoods villages streets markets and even mosques with names of Turkic origin were changed to names that emanated from the Ba th Party or from Arab heroes Moreover many Iraqi Turkmen villages and neighbourhoods in Kirkuk were simply demolished particularly in the 1990s Turkmen Kurdish tension and Kurdification Iraqi Turkmen woman holding a placard written in Turkish Kerkuk u hicbir guc Kurtlestiremez No power can Kurdify Kirkuk The Kurds claimed de facto sovereignty over land that Iraqi Turkmen regard as theirs For the Iraqi Turkmen their identity is deeply inculcated as the rightful inheritors of the region as a legacy of the Ottoman Empire Thus it is claimed that the Kurdistan Region and Iraqi government has constituted a threat to the survival of the Iraqi Turkmen through strategies aimed at eradicating or assimilating them The formation of the Kurdistan Region in 1991 created high animosity between the Kurds and Iraqi Turkmen resulting in some Iraqi Turkmen being victims of Kurdification according to Liam Anderson The largest concentration of Iraqi Turkmen tended to be in the de facto capital of Erbil a city which they had assumed prominent administrative and economic positions Thus they increasingly came into dispute and often conflict with the ruling powers of the city which after 1996 was the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Massoud Barzani According to Anderson and Stansfield in the 1990s tension between the Kurds and Iraqi Turkmen inflamed as the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan PUK were institutionalized as the political hegemons of the region and from the perspective of the Iraqi Turkmen sought to marginalize them from the positions of authority and to subsume their culture with an all pervading Kurdistani identity With the support of Ankara a new political front of Turkmen parties the Iraqi Turkmen Front ITF was formed on 24 April 1995 The relationship between the Iraqi Turkmen Front and the KDP was tense and deteriorated as the decade went on Iraqi Turkmen associated with the Iraqi Turkmen Front complained about harassment by Kurdish security forces In March 2000 the Human Rights Watch reported that the KDP s security attacked the offices of the ITF in Erbil killing two guards following a lengthy period of disputes between the two parties In 2002 the KDP created an Iraqi Turkmen political organization the Turkmen National Association that supported the further institutionalization of the Kurdistan Region This was viewed by pro ITF Iraqi Turkmen as a deliberate attempt to buy off Iraqi Turkmen opposition and break their bonds with Ankara Promoted by the KDP as the true voice of the Iraqi Turkmen the Turkmen National Association has a pro Kurdistani stance and has effectively weakened the ITF as the sole representative voice of the Iraqi Turkmen Beginning in 2003 there were riots between Kurds and Turkmen in Kirkuk a city that Turkmen view as historically theirs According to United Nations reports the KRG and Peshmerga were illegaily policing Kirkurk abducting Turkmen and Arabs and subjecting them to torture Between 2003 and 2006 1 350 Turkmens in Tal A far died mainly from sectarian violence and war and thousands of houses were damaged or demolished resulting in 4 685 displaced families Genocide under ISPoliticsAn Iraqi Turkmen rally Between ten and twelve Turkmen individuals were elected to the transitional National Assembly of Iraq in January 2005 including five on the United Iraqi Alliance list three from the Iraqi Turkmen Front ITF and either two or four from the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan 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 Saadeddin Arkej two or four from the United Iraqi Alliance one from the Iraqi Accord Front and one from the Kurdistani Alliance Iraqi Turkmen have also emerged as a key political force in the controversy over the future status of northern Iraq and the Kurdistan Region The government of Turkey has helped fund such political organizations as the Iraqi Turkmen Front which opposes Iraqi federalism and in particular the proposed annexation of Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Regional Government Tensions between the two groups over Kirkuk however have slowly died out and on January 30 2006 the President of Iraq Jalal Talabani said that the Kurds are working on a plan to give Iraqi Turkmens autonomy in areas where they are a majority in the new constitution they re drafting for the Kurdistan Region of Iraq However it never happened and the policies of Kurdification by KDP and PUK after 2003 with non Kurds being pressed to move have prompted serious inter ethnic problems Notable peopleFarah Zeynep Abdullah Turkish actress Jafar al Askari former Prime Minister of Iraq 1923 24 and 1926 27 Abbas al Bayati politician Mohammed Mahdi al Bayati Iraqi politician Yasin al Hashimi former Prime Minister of Iraq 1924 25 and 1935 36 Khairi Al Hindawi poet Maruf al Rusafi poet Nuri al Said former Prime Minister of Iraq 1930 32 1938 40 1941 44 1946 47 1949 1950 52 1954 57 and 1958 Arshad al Salihi politician Mohammed Abdullah al Shahwani Iraqi general Jamil Sidqi al Zahawi Iraqi poet Saadeddin Arkej politician Selim Bayraktar Turkish actor Ahmet bin Carlak considered the first environmentalist in Turkey and called the Tarzan of Manisa Kamil Chadirji Iraqi politician Rifat Chadirji Iraqi architect David Chokachi American actor Hijri Dede poet Ihsan Dogramaci founder of Bilkent University and Hacettepe University Esad Erbili Sufi sheikh Fuzuli 16th century poet writer and thinker Gokbori leading emir and general Amine Gulse Swedish model crowned Miss Turkey 2014 and actress Muhammad Sadiq Hassan Iraqi poet Ismet Hurmuzlu Turkish actor Jasim Mohammed Jaafar Minister for Youth amp Sports Jijak mother of the caliph al Muktafi Gokhan Kirdar Turkish musician Sayyida Zumurrud Khatun was the mother of Abbasid caliph al Nasir Lutfi Kirdar Turkish politician Nemir Kirdar billionaire businessman Fathi Safwat Kirdar Iraqi painter and sculptor Rena Kirdar author and socialite Uner Kirdar Turkish diplomat and senior United Nations official tr Minister of State in Iraq 2020 present Hidir Lutfi poet Younis Mahmoud football player de winner of Miss Germany 1996 Reha Muhtar Turkish television personality Talib Mushtaq poet and diplomat Zahra mother of Al Mustansir I Salih Neftci Turkish economist Rashad Mandan Omar Minister of Science and Technology 2003 Hasan Riza Pasha Ottoman general Maridah bint Shabib wife of Abbasid caliph Harun al Rashid and mother of eighth Abbasid caliph al Mu tasim Fahmi Said army officer Amel Senan actress Hikmat Sulayman former Prime Minister of Iraq 1936 37 Mehmet Turkmehmet football player Ali Saip Ursavas Turkish politician ar American actor Imad al Din Zengi ruler of the Zengid dynasty Gokhan Kirdar musicianSee alsoTurkmeneli Turkish minorities in the former Ottoman Empire Turks in the Arab world Syrian Turkmen Turks in Lebanon Demographics of Iraq Minorities in Iraq Human rights in post invasion Iraq Iraqi Turkmen Front 2009 Taza bombing 16th Turkmen Brigade Iraq Turkey relationsReferencesTriana 2017 p 168 Turkmen Iraqi citizens of Turkish origin are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq after Arabs and Kurds and they are said to number about 3 million of Iraq s 34 7 million citizens according to the Iraqi Ministry of Planning Bassem Wassim 2016 Iraq s Turkmens call for independent province Al Monitor Archived from the original on 12 September 2021 Iraqi Turkmens who are citizens of Iraq with Turkish origins have been calling for their own independent province in the Tal Afar district west of Mosul located in the center of the Ninevah province Turkmens are a mix of Sunnis and Shiites and are the third largest ethnicity in Iraq after Arabs and Kurds numbering around 3 million out of the total population of about 34 7 million according to 2013 data from the Iraqi Ministry of Planning Tastekin Fehim 2018 Why Iraqi Turkmens are excluded from the new government Al Monitor Archived from the original on 12 September 2021 Retrieved 12 September 2021 Turkmens are said to be 10 13 of the overall Iraqi population but that ratio is not reflected in parliament Dolamari Mewan 2016 Turkmens marginalized in Mosul liberation Kurdistan24 Archived from the original on 12 September 2021 Retrieved 12 September 2021 Turkmens in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region represent the third largest ethnic group in Iraq 13 percent of the population Guger M Birol 2021 Ersat Salihi nin istifasi ic savas senaryolari ve Irak Turklerinin gelecegi Ersat Salihi s resignation civil war scenarios and the future of Iraqi Turks in Turkish Cumhuriyet Retrieved 12 September 2021 Peki bu durumda Irak ta yasayan 4 milyon Turk ne ile karsilasacak So what will the 4 million Turks living in Iraq face in this case Sari Esra 2020 Irak ta 5 milyon Turkmen yasiyor 5 million Turkmen live in Iraq in Turkish Ticari Hayat Archived from the original on 26 October 2021 Retrieved 12 September 2021 Irak ta yaklasik 5 milyon Turkmen yasamaktadir About 5 million Turkmen live in Iraq Bainbridge Margaret 2013 Turkic Peoples Of The World Routledge ISBN 9781136153624 1 Johanson Lars 2021 Turkic Cambridge University Press pp 98 99 ISBN 9781009038218 via Google Books Turkish is the largest and most vigorous Turkic language spoken by over 80 million people a third of the total number of Turkic speakers Turkish is a recognized regional minority language in North Macedonia Kosovo Romania and Iraq Oguzlu 2004 p 313 Iraq The Ancient Sites amp Iraqi Kurdistan Geoff Hann Karen Dabrowska Tina Townsend Greaves 2015 pp 200 ISBN 9781841624884 1841624888 Demirci Fazil 1991 The Iraqi Turks Yesterday and Today Turkish Historical Society Printing Press ISBN 9759544326 Kushner David 1987 Pan Turkism Today Contemporary Turkey and the Outside Turks Asian and African Studies Journal of the Israel Oriental Society 21 2 202 ISSN 0066 8281 Official reaction to the question of the Turkish minority in Iraq did change somewhat in the course of 1980 when it was learnt that several Iraqi Turks had been tried and executed on charges of reason Cuthell David 2007 Turkey Eyes Iraq Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 8 2 Georgetown University Press 66 Kirkuk GlobalSecurity org Ankara had strongly opposed Iraqi Kurdish aspirations to take control of Kirkuk arguing it belongs as much to the Iraqi Turkish minority Sadik 2009 p 13 the Turkmen are Iraq s third largest ethnic group after the Arabs and Kurds Barker 2012 p 23 The Turkish speaking Turkmen are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq after the Arabs and the Kurds Peyrouse Sebastien 2015 Turkmenistan Strategies of Power Dilemmas of Development Routledge p 62 ISBN 978 0 230 11552 1 Kushner 1987 p 209 The New York Times 2015 Who Are the Turkmens of Syria The New York Times Archived from the original on 14 January 2017 Retrieved 3 March 2017 Saatci Suphi 2018 The Turkman of Iraq In Bulut Christiane ed Linguistic Minorities in Turkey and Turkic Speaking Minorities of the Periphery Harrassowitz Verlag p 331 ISBN 978 3447107235 Bashkin Orit 2008 The Other Iraq Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite Iraq Stanford University Press p 178 ISBN 978 0804774154 For Mustafa Gokkaya b 1910 this signified that his community was Muslim and that my father is Turk and the homeland is my mother For Resit Ali Dakuklu b 1918 being part of the Turks of Iraq signified maintaining brotherly relations with every nation being united with Iraq while speaking in Turkish Universal and local Iraqi and Turkish at the same time the Turkoman poets were willing to serve their nation yet unwilling to neglect their culture and their Turkishness Taylor 2004 p 31 The largest number of Turkmen immigrants followed the army of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent when he conquered all of Iraq in 1535 Throughout their reign the Ottomans encouraged the settlement of immigrant Turkmen along the loosely formed boundary that divided Arab and Kurdish settlements in northern Iraq Jawhar 2010 p 314 There s a strong conflict of opinions regarding the origins of Iraqi Turkmen however it is certain that they settled down during the Ottoman rule in the northwest of Mosul whence they spread to eastern Baghdad Once there they became high ranked officers experts traders and executives in residential agglomerations lined up along the vast fertile plains and mingled with Kurds Assyrians Arabs and other confessions With the creation of the new Iraqi state in 1921 Iraqi Turkmen managed to maintain their socioeconomic status International Crisis Group 2008 Turkomans are descendents of Ottoman Empire era soldiers traders and civil servants The 1957 census Iraq s last reliable count before the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958 put the country s population at 6 300 000 and the Turkoman population at 567 000 about 9 per cent Subsequent censuses in 1967 1977 1987 and 1997 are all considered highly problematic due to suspicions of regime manipulation Library of Congress Iraq Other Minorities Library of Congress retrieved 24 November 2011 The Turkomans who speak a Turkish dialect have preserved their language but are no longer tribally organized Most are Sunnis who were brought in by the Ottomans to repel tribal raids Taylor 2004 p 30 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 15 Stansfield 2007 p 70 Rubin 2015 pp 528 529 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 16 Fattah amp Caso 2009 p 115 Fattah amp Caso 2009 p 116 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 17 Fattah amp Caso 2009 p 117 Fattah amp Caso 2009 p 118 Fattah amp Caso 2009 p 120 Talabany 2007 p 75 Stansfield 2007 p 72 Lukitz 1995 p 41 BBC 18 June 2004 Who s who in Iraq Turkmen Retrieved 23 November 2011 The predominantly Muslim Turkmen are an ethnic group with close cultural and linguistic ties to Anatolia in Turkey Boeschoten 1998 p 13 Bulut Christiane 2018b The Turkic varieties of Iran In Haig Geoffrey Khan Geoffrey eds The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia An Areal Perspective Walter de Gruyter p 398 ISBN 978 3110421682 Sen Serkan 2008 Cagdas Irak Turkmen Turkcesinde Yasayan Eski Turkce Deyimler Old Turkish Idioms Living in Contemporary Iraqi Turkmen Turkish Black Sea Journal of Public and Social Science in Turkish 1 1 1 Bayatli 1996 p 329 Stein Heidi 2010 Optativ versus Voluntativ Imperativ in iranturkischen Texten Optative versus Voluntative Imperatives in Iranian Turkish Texts In Boeschoten Hendrik eds Turcology in Mainz Turkology in Mainz in German Otto Harrassowitz Verlag p 244 ISBN 978 3447061131 Damit weist das Irakturkische hier wie auch bei einigen anderen Merkmalen eine grossere Nahe zum Turkeiturkischen auf As a result Iraqi Turkish is closer to Turkey Turkish here as is the case with some other characteristics Map The Turkic Language Family Turkic Languages Journal Johanson Lars 2002 Turk Dili Haritasi Uzerinde Kesifler Discoveries on the Turkish Language Map in Turkish Grafiker Yayinlari pp 21 22 ISBN 9759334488 Bulut Christiane 1999 Klassifikatorische Merkmale des Irakturkischen Classificatory features of Iraqi Turkish Orientalia Suecana in German 48 5 27 Bulut Christiane 2018 Iraq Turkic In Haig Geoffrey Khan Geoffrey eds The Languages and Linguistics of Western Asia An Areal Perspective Walter de Gruyter p 354 ISBN 978 3110421682 Johanson 2001 p 15 Bulut 2007 p 166 Bulut Christiane 2007 Iraqi Turkman PDF In Postgate J N ed Languages of Iraq Ancient and Modern British School of Archaeology in Iraq p 167 ISBN 978 0903472210 Johanson 2001 p 16 Johanson Lars 2009 Modals in Turkic In Hansen Bjorn de Haan Ferdinand eds Modals in the Languages of Europe A Reference Work Walter de Gruyter pp 502 504 ISBN 978 3110219203 Bulut 2018 p 357 Bammarny Bawar 2016 The Legal Status of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria In Grote Rainer Roder Tilmann J eds Constitutionalism Human Rights and Islam After the Arab Spring Oxford University Press p 482 ISBN 978 0190627645 Simmons Mary Kate 1997 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization Yearbook Martinus Nijhoff Publishers p 88 ISBN 904110223X Shanks 2016 p 57 Shanks 2016 p 58 Underhill Robert 1986 Turkish In Slobin Dan I Zimmer Karl eds Studies in Turkish Linguistics John Benjamins Publishing p 8 ISBN 9027228760 Coskun Hatice 2010 Embedding indirective evidential utterances in Turkish In Diewald Gabriele Smirnova Elena eds Linguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages Walter de Gruyter p 190 ISBN 978 3110223965 Gulensoy Tuncer 1981 Anadolu ve Rumeli Agizlari Bibliyografyasi Anadolu Kibris Suriye Irak Bulgaristan Yunanistan ve Romanya Turk Agizlari Kultur Bakanligi p 7 Kirchner Mark 2008 Turkish in Versteegh Kees Eid Mushira Elgibali Alaa Woidich Manfred Zaborski Andrzej eds Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics vol 4 Brill Publishers p 583 ISBN 978 90 04 14476 7 Ercilasun Ahmet Bican 2007 Turk Lehceleri Grameri Akcag p 2004 ISBN 978 9753388856 Timurtas Faruk K 1997 Makaleler Dil ve Edebiyat Incelemeleri Ataturk Kultur Dil ve Tarih Yuksek Kurumu p 243 ISBN 9751609151 Karpat Kemal H 1984 A Language in Search of a Nation Turkish in the Nation State in Baeumer Max L Scaglione Aldo D eds The Emergence of National Languages Longo Editor p 176 ASIN B000OV77HE Asher R E Simpson J M Y 1994 Turkish The Encyclopedia of language and linguistics Volume 9 Pergamon Press p 4786 ISBN 0080359434 Parker Philip M 1997 Linguistic Cultures of the World A Statistical Reference Greenwood Publishing Group p 23 ISBN 031329769X Akar Ali 2006 Agiz Arastirmalarinda Yontem Sorunlari Turkish Studies Turkoloji Arastirmalari Dergisi 2 46 Bulut 1999 p 9 Ercilasun 2007 p 1989 Brendemon Bernt 2005 Consonant Assimilations A possible Parameter for the Classification of Turkish dialects in Johanson Lars ed Turkic Languages vol 9 Harrassowitz Verlag p 178 Clark Larry V 1998 Turkmen Reference Grammar Otto Harrassowitz Verlag p 11 ISBN 344704019X Bulut 1999 9 quoting Hussin Shahbz Hassan 1979 Kerkuk Agz Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakultesi Turk Dili ve Edebiyati Bolumu Doctoral Thesis Doerfer Gerhard 1987 Iran da Turkler PDF Turk Dili TDK Yay Doerfer Gerhard 2011 AZERBAIJAN viii Azeri Turkish Encyclopaedia Iranica Gokdag Bilgehan Atsiz 2019 Telafer agzi Karadeniz Arastirmalari XVI 61 103 Karahan 1996 p 14 Karahan Leyla Atsiz 1996 Anadolu Agizlarinin Siniflandirilmasi Turk Dil Kurumu p 25 Bulut 2007 p 179 Gokdag 2019 p 106 Gokdag 2019 p 105 Johanson Lars 2006 Historical cultural and linguistic aspects of Turkic Iranian contiguity in Johanson Lars Bulut Christiane eds Turkic Iranian Contact Areas Historical and Linguistic Aspects Otto Harrassowitz Verlag p 13 Bulut Christiane 2000 Optative constructions in Iraqi Turkmen in Goksel Asli Kerslake Celia eds Studies on Turkish and Turkic Languages Otto Harrassowitz Verlag p 161 ISBN 3 447 04293 1 Gokdag 2019 p 104 Anderson Liam Stansfield Gareth 2011 Crisis in Kirkuk The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise University of Pennsylvania Press p 43 ISBN 978 0812206043 Hazar Mehmet 2012 Irak Erbil Turkmen Agzinda g gt c Unsuz Degismesi Diyalektolog Dergisi 4 48 50 Change Request Documentation 2020 039 SIL ISO 639 Maintenance Agency Decision Statement PDF 9 September 2024 Allison Christine 2007 The Kurds are Alive Kurdish in Iraq In Postgate J N ed Languages of Iraq Ancient and Modern British School of Archaeology in Iraq p 142 ISBN 978 0903472210 Bammarny 2016 p 483 Karimi Ali 2016 Linguistic and Cultural Rights in the Arab Constitutions From Arabism to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity In Grote Rainer Roder Tilmann J eds Constitutionalism Human Rights and Islam After the Arab Spring Oxford University Press p 594 ISBN 978 0190627645 Iraqi Turkmen are happy as their national days recognized Kirkuknow Retrieved 3 June 2022 Turkmen Ogrenciler MATSO yu Ziyaret Etti Haberler www matso org tr Retrieved 12 June 2023 Shanks 2016 p 60 Shanks 2016 p 59 Turkmeneli Tv Radyo Genel Yayin Yonetmeni Yalman Hacaroglu ile Soylesi Interview with Turkmeneli Tv Radio Editor in Chief Yalman Hacaroglu in Turkish ORSAM 2012 Retrieved 14 November 2017 Jawhar 2010 pp 313 328 In short Iraqi Turkmen are a unique ethnic group they are predominantly Muslim and divided into two main sects Shiites 40 Sunnites 60 and have strong cultural ties with Turkey Oguzlu 2004 p 314 al Lami Mina 21 July 2014 Iraq The minorities of Nineveh BBC Archived from the original on 14 May 2020 Shams Alex Iraq s Turkmen mobilise for a post ISIL future Al Jazeera www fildisiajans com tr Fildisi Ajans Danismanlik ve Yazilim ORSAM Center for Middle Eastern Studies ORSAM Center for Middle Eastern Studies Retrieved 19 September 2023 a href wiki Template Cite web title Template Cite web cite web a CS1 maint multiple names authors list link Hann Geoff 2015 Iraq The ancient sites and Iraqi Kurdistan Bradt Travel Guides ISBN 9781841624884 There are estimated to be some three million Turkmen in Iraq but despite There are also about 30 000 Christian Catholic Turks and some Jews living in Iraq Iraq The Ancient Sites amp Iraqi Kurdistan Geoff Hann Karen Dabrowska Tina Townsend Greaves 2015 pp 200 Home Turkmen Bible Partnership Turkmen Bible Partne Retrieved 19 September 2023 Turkic Peoples Of The World Margaret Bainbridge 2013 pp 174 Al Hurmezi Ahmed 9 December 2010 The Human Rights Situation of the Turkmen Community in Iraq Middle East Online archived from the original on 18 October 2017 retrieved 31 October 2011 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization Iraqi Turkmen The Human Rights Situation and Crisis in Kerkuk PDF Archived from the original PDF on 18 October 2017 Retrieved 31 October 2011 Yegen Mesut 2012 Ingiliz Belgelerinde Kurdistan Ankara Dipnot Yayinlari p 124 FO 371 4193 27th November 1919 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 43 Knights 2004 p 262 The 1957 Iraqi census the last in which the Turkmens were permitted to register counted 567 000 Turkmens Guclu 2007 p 79 The last reliable census in Iraqi and the only one in which participants could declare their mother tongue was in 1957 It found that Turkomans were the third largest ethnicity in Iraq after Arabs and Kurds The Turkomans numbered 567 000 out of a total population of 6 300 000 Betts 2013 p 86 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 58 Gunter 2004 p 131 Taylor 2004 p 79 Taylor 2004 p 28 International Crisis Group 2008 p 16 Phillips 2006 p 304 Behind the Arabs and the Kurds Turkmen are the third largest ethnic group in Iraq The ITF claim Turkmen represent 12 percent of Iraq s population In response the Kurds point to the 1997 census which showed that there were only 600 000 Turkmen Graham Brown 1999 p 161 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization Iraqi Turkmen Retrieved 5 December 2010 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization The Turkmen of Iraq Underestimated Marginalized and exposed to assimilation Terminology Retrieved 4 December 2010 Taylor 2004 p 32 Kibaroglu Mustafa Kibaroglu Ayșegul Halman Talat Sait 2009 Global security watch Turkey A reference handbook Greenwood Publishing Group p 165 Gulf 2000 Project Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 56 O Leary 2009 p 152 Hashim 2005 p 370 Report PDF turkmen nl 30 July 2004 Retrieved 19 May 2023 Bilgay Duman August 2016 The Situation of Turkmens and The Turkmen Areas After ISIS Report Ortadogu Arastirmalari Merkezi ORSAM Also available via Academia edu Irakli Turkmenler Kerkuk icin yurudu Iraqi Turkmens marched for Kirkuk in Turkish Hurriyet 2008 Wanche Sophia I 2004 An Assessment of the Iraqi Community in Greece PDF United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees p 3 Sirkeci 2005 p 20 International Organization for Migration 2007 Iraq Mapping Exercise PDF International Organization for Migration p 5 archived from the original PDF on 16 July 2011 Duman Bilgay 2010 Turkiye ye Yonelik Turkmen Gocu ve Turkiye deki Turkmen Varligi Turkmen Migration to Turkey and Turkmen Presence in Turkey in Turkish Center for Middle Eastern Strategic Studies p 11 ISBN 978 605 5330 64 4 Kerkuk Vakfi Genel Sekreteri Prof Dr Suphi Saatci nin verdigi rakamlara gore yaklasik olarak Kanada da 1000 Danimarka da 2000 Hollanda da ise 4000 e yakin Turkmen in yasadigi ve Turkiye uzerinden bu ulkelere goc ettigi bilinmektedir Kirkuk Foundation Secretary General Prof Dr According to the figures given by Suphi Saatci it is known that approximately 1000 Turkmen live in Canada 2000 in Denmark and close to 4000 in the Netherlands and immigrated to these countries via Turkey Canadian Iraqi Turkmen Culture Association CITCAL Canadian Iraqi Turkmen Culture Association CITCAL Retrieved 26 October 2021 Iraqis www encyclopedia chicagohistory org Retrieved 15 June 2023 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 62 Post Saddam Iraq New Realities Old Identities Changing Patterns 2011 pp 251 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 63 Bardakci Murat Kerkuk katliamlarini Irak a ayip olur diye eskiden sansur ederdik We used to censor the Kirkuk massacres because it would be a disgrace to Iraq www hurriyet com tr in Turkish Retrieved 29 November 2020 Gavurbagi Katliami 12 Temmuz 1946 Turkmen Basin Ajansi Gavurbagi Massacre 12 July 1946 Turkmen Press Agency www tbajansi com in Turkish Archived from the original on 20 January 2022 Retrieved 29 November 2020 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 64 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 34 Ghanim 2011 p 380 Entessar 2010 p 79 Altunkopru the ancient name of Turkmen Township PDF Al Haddad offers condolences to Turkmen people on anniversary of Kirkuk Altun Kupri Tuzhurmatu and Taza massacres Iraqi Parliament Council Retrieved 19 May 2023 Jenkins 2008 p 15 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 65 International Crisis Group 2006 p 5 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 66 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 67 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 68 Anderson amp Stansfield 2009 p 69 Isakhan Benjamin ed 1 August 2015 The Legacy of Iraq Edinburgh University Press doi 10 3366 edinburgh 9780748696161 001 0001 ISBN 978 0 7486 9616 1 Interesting Outcomes in Iraqi Election Archived 2005 11 03 at the Wayback Machine Zaman Daily Newspaper The New Iraq The Middle East and Turkey A Turkish View Archived 2009 03 05 at the Wayback Machine Foundation for Political Economic and Social Research 2006 04 01 accessed on 2007 09 06 Turkmen Win Only One Seat in Kerkuk Archived 2008 06 19 at the Wayback Machine Iraqi Turkmen Front Kurds Accused Of Rigging Kirkuk Vote Archived 2006 08 21 at the Wayback Machine Al Jazeera Cevik Ilnur 30 January 2006 Talabani Autonomy for Turkmen in Kurdistan Kurdistan Weekly Archived from the original on 29 June 2017 Retrieved 20 May 2006 Stansfield 2007 p 71 Milliyet 16 August 2013 Engin Akyurek in yeni sinema filmi Bir Eylul Meselesi Engin Akyurek s new feature film A September Matter in Turkish Retrieved 16 June 2014 Farah Zeynep Abdullah Irakli Turkmen kokenli baba ve bir Turk annenin kizidir Farah Zeynep Abdullah is the daughter of an Iraqi Turkmen father and a Turkish mother Nakash 2011 p 87 Today s Zaman 16 August 2010 Davutoglu meets Iraq s Turkmen politicians urges unity Retrieved 16 June 2014 Batuman Elift 17 February 2014 Letter From Istanbul Ottomania A his TV show reimagines Turkey s imperial past The New Yorker Archived from the original on 14 May 2020 Magazine Wallpaper 21 April 2020 In memoriam Rifat Chadirji 1926 2020 Wallpaper Wilcox Emily 2008 Plymouth TV star says yes to studio The Daily Register Retrieved 9 December 2020 Chokachi is not from Japan He has Turkish and Finnish ancestry and grew up in Plymouth where his dad is a renowned surgeon David attended Tabor Academy where he played lacrosse and football then Bates College in Maine where he earned a bachelor s in political science But he still hadn t found his calling he said he was like so many young people unsure of their path in life also in Wilcox Emily 2008 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Francis ISBN 978 1 317 42368 3 Wien Peter 2014 Iraqi Arab Nationalism Authoritarian Totalitarian and Pro Fascist Inclinations 1932 1941 Routledge ISBN 978 1 134 20479 3 External linksMedia related to Iraqi Turkmen at Wikimedia Commons