The Governorate of Kirkuk, an Iraqi city with a sizeable Turkmen population, greenlit the use of Turkish as the official language this week.
Turkish will be used in official correspondence and signs after the decision of the governorate, as well as in traffic signs.
Speaking about the matter, the governorate’s press officer Marwan al-Ani told Anadolu Agency (AA), that Turkish was the latest addition to other languages adopted as official by the city, after the Kurdish and Syriac languages.
Ershad Salihi, a Turkmen lawmaker, has been an outspoken critic of the delay in the decision which was originally adopted in 2008 while its implementation was delayed for years. He sent a letter to Kirkuk Governor Rakan al-Jabouri on the issue on Sept. 11.
Turkmens are Iraq's third largest ethnic community after Arabs and Kurds.
There are no official figures for the country’s total Turkmen population, but Turkmen officials say they account for about 7% of the country's population of 38 million.
Iraq's neighbor Türkiye has taken a firm stance against attempts to manipulate its ethnic makeup.
In March, Türkiye urged Iraq to end the restriction of the official use of the Turkmen language in Kirkuk and termed the restriction as a violation of the basic rights of Turkmens.
In a written statement, the ministry pointed out that the decision also contradicted the articles of the Iraqi Constitution. “Article 4 of the Constitution governs the provision that Turkmen is the official language in the administrative units where the Turkmen population is concentrated.
Likewise, Article 125 of the Iraqi Constitution emphasizes that the Constitution guarantees administrative and cultural rights of all components that make up Iraq,” it underlined.
The ministry further said that such steps which ignore the rights and sensitivities of the Turkmens are harming efforts toward establishing a cultural coexistence.
“We call on the Iraqi authorities to quickly review this decision,” the statement read.
