ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The Iraqi Ministry of Justice announced on Friday the formation of a committee to monitor the implementation of the recently passed property restitution law, detailing that the implementation would take up to six months.

“The committee discussed the implementation of Law No. 3 of 2025, which repeals the dissolved Revolutionary Command Council law and returns properties to their owners,” Ahmed Laibi, the ministry’s spokesperson told state media on Friday, emphasizing “the need to issue instructions to implement the law within a period of six months.”

The property restitution law was published in Iraq’s Official Gazette on February 18, after being ratified by Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid in January.

It seeks to reverse the effects of the Arabization policy pursued by the banned Ba'ath Party regime for more than three decades, which was represented by the displacement of Kurdish and Turkmen families from their lands in the provinces of Diyala, Salahadin, Kirkuk, and Nineveh, granting their lands to Sunni Arabs to establish Arab villages in areas with a Kurdish and Turkmen majority.

The committee is headed by Justice Ministry Undersecretary Ziyad al-Tamimi and “includes members from “the Board of Financial Supervision, the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers, and the Ministry of Agriculture,” Laibi detailed.

Laibi added that the committee has submitted recommendations to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani to instruct Kirkuk Operations Command to “remove encroachment on properties not subject to legal disputes, allowing their owners to continue their activities in accordance with the law.”

The committee’s recommendations come after tensions erupted between Kurdish farmers and Iraqi army forces in northern Kirkuk’s Sargaran subdistrict in mid-February after the army surrounded the area, preventing the farmers from entering and cultivating their lands.

The escalation prompted an outcry from Kurdish officials with multiple notable political figures and Kurdish leaders condemning the actions of the Iraqi army forces, with Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani decrying the attacks on Kurdish farmers as “contrary” to Iraqi constitution.

Cabinet Resolution No. (29) of 2012 stipulates that citizens who occupied agricultural or other lands outside of legal means prior to January 1, 2012, are permitted to remain there and practice their agricultural activities in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

Laibi added that procedures have not yet been completed to implement the resolution, detailing that a recommendation has been submitted to Sudani to form a committee to study the circumstances of each case and allow citizens to continue agricultural activities bar legal hindrances.

The committee has also submitted recommendations to the Kirkuk Operations Command to form teams to visit farmers in the affected areas to reassure them that the implementation of the property restitution law will “resolve all the problems they have suffered from for many years.”