ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani on Monday reiterated his support for Kurdish farmers in Kirkuk after last month’s altercations with Iraqi army forces, emphasizing the need for the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution.

Barzani paid a visit to the Peshmerga forces’ fifth frontier -near the border between Kirkuk and Erbil-, meeting with the forces’ commanders and a number of farmers from Kirkuk’s northern villages and joining them for an iftar.

“We all saw the scenes of how these forces attacked the farmers. It was a very, very ugly scene, but we saw that President Barzani immediately responded and spoke to Baghdad and expressed our readiness to defend the rights of the Kurdish people,” said the Kurdish premier.

“We continue to keep that promise and we will not give up any part of this country.”

Tensions escalated between Kurdish farmers and Iraqi army forces in northern Kirkuk’s Sargaran subdistrict in mid-February after the forces surrounded the area, preventing the farmers from entering and cultivating their lands.

The oil-rich, multiethnic province of Kirkuk has been the central point in a long-standing dispute between Iraq and the Kurdistan Region over a stretch of land, with both sides laying claim to the city for decades now.

“I think a big mistake was made when these places were called disputed areas. They are not disputed areas. They are occupied areas. They are separated areas. These are all Kurdistan regions that have been forcibly taken away from our people and one day our people will return to their areas but with pride,” Barzani added, but stressed that they want to achieve this peacefully, not through violence and fighting.

Barzani said that the issue of Kirkuk and other disputed areas cannot be resolved through obtaining a number of posts, emphasizing the need for Kurdish unity to achieve these objectives.

“Kirkuk itself is the heart of Kurdistan and must one day return to the embrace of Kurdistan,” he added.

“No force is stronger than the will of the Kurdish people.”

Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution seeks to reverse the impact of Saddam Hussein’s demographic change policies by detailing steps to resolve the issue of territories disputed between the Iraqi federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), including holding referendums in those areas.

The article specifies that the process must be completed by the end of 2007, but successive Iraqi governments have failed to do so nearly 18 years after the mentioned deadline.