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Why Iraqi Turkmens are excluded from the new government

Iraqi Turkmens say they have been excluded from the new Iraqi government because they refuse to follow a sectarian approach to politics.
A picture taken on April 30, 2018 shows an electoral banner for the Iraqi Turkmen Front hanging beneath the flags of Iraq (L) and the Iraqi Turkmen (C, white crescent and stars on a blue background) above a pedestrian crossing in the oil-rich and multi-ethnic northern city of Kirkuk. - The past seven months have seen a dramatic turn of events in Kirkuk, the "Jerusalem of Kurdistan", where hopes of independence for Iraqi Kurdistan were dashed after Baghdad retaliated against a referendum held in September. (

Iraqi Turkmens had hoped that political circumstances would turn in their favor after oil-rich Kirkuk passed from Kurdish rule to the control of the federal government. Yet the Turkmens were disappointed when Iraq's newly appointed prime minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, excluded Turkmens from his Cabinet.

Ali Mehdi, the spokesman for the powerful Iraqi Turkmen Front, said the Iraqi government blatantly ignores Turkmens. He demanded that one of the eight unfilled Cabinet seats be given to a Turkmen.

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