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Kirkuk Governor and Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITC) President Mehmet Seman Aga told a gathering of Turkmen diaspora organizations in Istanbul that the appointment of a Turkmen governor in Kirkuk for the first time in 102 years was the result of a promise kept.
He said the next goal is to secure a ministerial post in Iraq's newly forming central government and in the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG).
Welcomed by the crowd with chants of "Kirkuk is Turkish and will remain Turkish," Aga referenced a pledge he had made in Istanbul the previous year.
"When we were together here in Istanbul last year, we had given a word. Allah willing, in 2026, 102 years later, 'we will do everything we can to have a Turkmen governor appointed to Kirkuk.' Today I am both proud and excited that such an achievement has been realized," he said.
Aga described the path to the appointment as the result of difficult negotiations with all of Iraq's main political communities following local elections.
"We conducted a difficult negotiation. Did we get the governorship? We did. Did we break the chain? We did. From now on, our goal is for a Turkmen governor to serve for at least one to one and a half years in every four," he said.
He noted the achievement belonged first and foremost to the Turkmen people and their killed ones by saying, "Had our noble people not remained loyal and supportive to the Iraqi Turkmen Front, this success would not have been possible today."
On June 6, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received Aga at the Dolmabahce Working Office in Istanbul, with Türkiye's ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) Deputy Chairman Kursad Zorlu, and Presidential Chief Foreign Policy and Security Adviser Akif Cagatay Kilic were also present.
Erdogan said the preservation of peace in Kirkuk, which he described as a symbol of Iraq's cultural and human richness, would benefit the entire region, and that success there would make a major contribution to the goals of reviving the wider region and clearing it of terrorism.
He congratulated Aga on building close relations with all communities in the province since taking office and said Türkiye's support for peace in Iraq and Kirkuk would continue to be strong.
Aga told Erdogan that the Iraqi Turkmen Front would continue to contribute to Iraq's development and security and to defend the Turkmens' constitutional rights and freedoms.
Aga also said Erdogan had congratulated Iraq's new Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and had expressed a desire to see a ministry allocated to the ITC and Turkmens in the new government.
Aga told the Istanbul audience that contacts in Baghdad had indicated a ministry would be allocated not to "Turkmens" broadly but specifically to the Turkmen Front.
"After our latest contacts in Baghdad, you will see a ministry in the newly forming government, Allah willing," he said.
Speaking at an ORSAM panel in Ankara on June 4, Aga framed the governorship as part of a broader long-term vision for Turkmen representation, saying, "Our fundamental goal is to make peace, stability and brotherhood permanent in Kirkuk. At the same time, we aim for the rotational governorship model to become institutionalized as a system. Because Kirkuk's peace is Iraq's stability, and Iraq's stability is the Middle East's peace and stability."
The Kirkuk governor also said at the ORSAM panel that the Turkmens had never pursued a policy aimed at dividing Iraq, noting, "Turkmens never followed a policy aimed at dividing the country, on the contrary, we embraced Sunni, Shia, Kurdish and Arab alike. We were the cement of Iraq."
"We tried to be a bridge between Ankara and Baghdad. We tried to be as useful as possible to our country, Iraq, to our homeland, Turkmeneli, and to our Kirkuk," he said in Istanbul, adding that talks with Türkiye had helped resolve water supply problems affecting Iraq.
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