For years, members of Iraq’s Turkmen community have demanded that Tal Afar be elevated from its current status as a district in Nineveh to that of a full governorate. These calls have intensified as the Iraqi government is considering agreeing to Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan becoming the country’s 19^th governorate. In response, Turkmen MPs earlier this year began collecting signatures to add a draft legislation about Tal Afar’s status to the parliamentary agenda.

On Apr. 2, Badr Organization MP Gharib Turkmani announced that the effort had succeeded and that the matter would be discussed in future sessions. Months later, there is no movement on the issue. Meanwhile, objections from some Arab and Turkmen political parties over the lack of...