Shafaq News- al-Anbar
The head of the al-Anbar Provincial Council said on Tuesday that adecision by neighboring Babil province to bring several districts of al-Anbarwithin its own boundaries violates official state maps and Iraqi law, and thatthe council has taken legal and administrative steps to stop it.
The contested land lies within al-Amiriya district in al-Anbar, Iraq'slargest province, which borders both Babil and Karbala. Recent officialcorrespondence revealed Babil's move to detach three areas —Al-Ujair, Al-Batraand Al-Sukhairiya— and place them under its jurisdiction.
Speaking at a press conference, Hamid Daham Al-Alwani said the areasBabil's provincial council voted to annex do not match the maps approved byIraq's Ministry of Planning. “They are agricultural land held under activefarming contracts and usufruct rights recognized by Iraqi law.”
The council has formally written to Babil's provincial council to demandthe decision be revoked and the matter resolved through legal channels,Al-Alwani said, adding that al-Anbar would keep pursuing the issue with therelevant federal authorities to protect the province's administrativeboundaries and the rights of its residents.
Al-Anbar was previously at the center of a similar contest overal-Nukhaib district, which it claims and was the subject of attempts to attachit to Karbala in 2003. Comparable disagreements have recurred elsewhere,including between the provinces of Diyala and Saladin.
A separate and longer-running category of dispute exists between thefederal government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), theautonomous Kurdish administration in northern Iraq. For years the two sideshave contested territory across several provinces inhabited by a mix of Arabs,Kurds, Turkmen, and other communities of different faiths. These disputed areasinclude Kirkuk, north of Baghdad; the districts of Sinjar, al-Shaykhan andal-Hamdaniya and the sub-districts of Bashiqa and al-Qahtaniya in Ninevehprovince; the district of Khanaqin and its sub-districts, along with Baladruz,in Diyala; and the district of Badra and the sub-district of Jassan in Wasit.
