Iraq postpones census over fears of ethnic strife

BAGHDAD — Iraq said Sunday it has postponed plans to hold the first census in more than two decades due to fears it could stoke ethnic and political tension.

The census had been scheduled for Oct. 24. But Planning Minister Ali Baban said it has been postponed indefinitely because of reservations by political groups in the volatile northern areas, where territory is disputed between Arabs and Kurds.

The population count would have settled controversies over the size of the country’s religious and ethnic communities. It also has implications for decisions over the fate of the oil-rich area of Kirkuk as well as the budget allocation for the self-ruled Kurdish region in the north.

“The Planning Ministry is technically ready for the census, but after hearing some fears and reservations from political groups in Kirkuk and Ninevah, we decided to stall and the census has been postponed indefinitely,” he told reporters during a visit to the Shiite holy city of Najaf.

Many lawmakers had called for it to be postponed until after parliamentary elections scheduled for January, arguing that war has caused radical change in the sectarian makeup of many areas and the results could ignite new tension.

After decades of repression, Iraq’s majority Shiites rose to power with the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein after the U.S. invasion. Much of the insurgency that followed was driven by the once-dominant Sunnis, who felt disenfranchised. Militants from both communities drove the country to the brink of civil war in 2006 and 2007.

That bloodshed has ebbed since a 2007 U.S. troop buildup, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and a Shiite militia cease-fire. But U.S. commanders have warned that Arab-Kurdish tensions over land and oil in northern Iraq could provoke a new round of violence.

Sunni lawmaker Osama al-Nujaifi, whose brother Atheel is the provincial governor of Ninevah province, noted that large numbers of Kurds had moved into the Kirkuk area, raising Arab concerns that they seek to take control.

The census results also would have determined the Kurds’ fair share of the national budget.

Iraq’s government has allocated about 17 percent of its budget for the Kurds since Saddam’s fall, based on the assumption that the figure reflects their percentage of Iraq’s population.

But some Shiite and Sunni politicians claim Kurds should be cut back to about 14 percent. After much haggling, the Kurds held onto their 17 percent of the 2009 budget, pending the census.

It would have been the first nationwide census since 1987. A count conducted 10 years later excluded the three province that comprise the Kurdish region. The 1997 census put the country’s population at more than 26 million.