Kirkuk’s Arabs want Turkey to help reconstruct city

By Ali Mukarrem Garip and Zeynep Tufekci

KIRKUK, Iraq

Arabs living in Iraq’s Kirkuk are seeking Turkey’s support for reconstructing the oil-rich city after parts of Kirkuk province were liberated from the Daesh terrorist group last year, a local official said Tuesday.

“We want our neighbor Turkey, which is successful in the field of construction and reconstruction, to make development investments in our destroyed regions,” Hatem et-Taii, a member of the Arab Council in Kirkuk, told Anadolu Agency.

He said although the province’s southern districts and towns were liberated from Daesh around 10 months ago, locals have not been able to return to their homes.

Last December, officials in Baghdad declared that the Daesh terrorist group's military presence in Iraq had been all but dismantled after a three-year war.