"With oil-rich city in mind, Iraqi Turkmens go to the polls in Turkey
(AFP)
28 January 2005
ANKARA - Iraqis living in Turkey began voting Friday in Iraqi elections, with the majority of them Turkmen expatriates wary over the future of the ethnically volatile oil-rich city of Kirkuk.
In a high school in a residential neighborhood in Ankara, voters cast their ballots amid tight security measures, prompted by fears that tensions betweenKurds and Turkmens in Kirkuk might spill over to polling stations in Turkey, a security guard said.
�Kirkuk is our soul and blood. It is indispensible for us,� said Cemal Bayatli, a Kirkuk-born engineer who has lived in Turkey for the past 32 years.
�I came here to vote in order to prove the size of the Turkmen community in Iraq,� he added."
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