How elections will go in Khanaqeen?

Flag of Kurdistan in Khanaqeen. I took the photo from a moving car.

I visited Khanaqeen in November 2009 and met governor Mohamed Mala Hasan and the director of PUK office Salah Gokak.

They said that the security situation in Khanaqeen and Diyala province is now much better than one year ago (however, there was in Khanaqeen a bomb explosion in the beginning of January 2010, two people died and 25 people injured.)

The location of Khanaqeen is strategically important: it is the boarder between Erbil (Kurdistan Regional Government, KRG), Baghdad (the Arab Iraq) and Tehran.

The boarder of Iran is about ten kilometres east from Khanaqeen. If the situation in Iraq in general becomes more unstable, there is danger that Iran uses the situation and supports terrorist activities in Diyala to create chaos in whole Iraq.

The capital of Diyala province is Baquba. KRG wants to send peshmergas to Baquba but the Baghdad government does not accept it. Kurds living every where in disputed areas hope there would be peshmergas. Disputed areas are the Kurdish areas of Mosul, Kirkuk and Diyala provinces.

Iran is eager to gain power in Baquba because it is the gate to control Baghdad and whole Iraq. Baquba is located 50 kilometres northeast of Bahgdad.

Kurdish security service Asayish has some offices in Diyala in the areas which are controlled by Baghdad government. Iraqi police forces do not make any cooperation with Asayish in Diyala (opposite than in Kirkuk, where Iraqi and Kurdish security forces cooperate in fight against terrorism). When Asayish and peshmergas catch suspected terrorists they handle them immediately to Americans. Even when it is peshmergas who arrest terrorists in disputed areas, Kurdish courts can not arrange their trials.

Kurdish authorities are worried that there will be problems during the Iraqi parliament elections in March 2010.

There are 8 000 Kurdish families in Khanaqeen who have not been able to register themselves as voters. These people have returned to Khanaqeen after being deported during Saddam's time. They are neither permitted to vote in their previous home towns.

It is half an hour journey from Kalar to Khanaqeen. There are people who travel every day from Khanaqeen to work in Kalar, or from Kalar to work in Khanaqeen.