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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish provincial authorities in Kirkuk have rejected a call by Baghdad to grant local ID cards to war-displaced refugees living there, accusing the central government of another tactic to “Arabize” the province."We reject this decree since it would help change the demography of the province,” Azad Jabbari, head of the Kirkuk Province's Security Committee, told Rudaw.“It is similar to the Baathist regime's Arabization process," he claimed, referring to policies by the ousted dictator Saddam Hussein to change Kirkuk’s Kurdish demography.Some 115,000 families were relocated to Kirkuk after fleeing homes in the central and western parts of Iraq since the Islamic State (ISIS) captured a third of the country since in June 2014.Only 20, 000 families have returned to their homes since ISIS retreats from their areas, beaten back by the Kurdish Peshmerga and Iraqi forces.According to the Iraqi constitution, any person who moves to reside in a new town or area is entitled to the right to local civil status.This is the second time that the Iraqi Interior Ministry has issued a decree to Kirkuk authorities to grant local civil status to internally displaced refugees living there for three years or more. But another Kirkuk official spoke of an agreement to return refugees to their homes, once their areas are liberated from ISIS control.“This is the only way to solve the refugee crisis," Ammar Aabah, head of the Kirkuk Migration Department, told Rudaw.After the Duhok province, Kirkuk is in second place for hosting the largest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the rest of Iraq.