Azerbaijan, Baku / Тrend corr S. Ilhamgizi / The Front of Iraqi Turkomans intend to open a representative office in Azerbaijan, the head of Turkman Adalat, Anvar Hamid Bayrakdar, reported at a symposium of Iraqi Turkomans in Baku on 4 September.
The problems of Iraqi Turkomans should be the centre of attention of Azerbaijani NGOs, human right activists, MPs, as well as international organizations, Bayrakdar said. After the collapse of the Great Ottoman Empire an eviction policy began in Iraq in respect of Turkomans. In 1924, 1946 and 1959 Armenians and the English committed the mass slaughter of Turkomans.
According to Bayrakdar, arrests of Turkomans lasted over 35 years. In this period 13 of 37 prisoners sentenced to over 20 year's imprisonment were Turkomans. The plan to evict the population from their native land to deserts was a failure as military action began.
"In order to work in state bodies, buy land and property Turkomans had to reject their nationality. In 2003, after the collapse of the regime, Iraq underwent US occupation. The people were cheated about the construction of a democratic government, about the extermination of terrorism. The US's main purpose in its Middle East project was because of Iraq's oil and to occupy Syria and Iran afterwards," the representative of Iraqi Turkomans added.
According to him, 1mln people have died since 2003, the country experiences inflation and unemployment.
Turkomans (or Turkmen) is an ethic group of Muslims having close cultural and linguistic bonds with the residents of Turkish Anatolia .