[1] The perpetrators were Kurds from the Iraqi Communist Party, the massacre also changed the previously positive Turkmen-Kurdish relationship in Iraq and created a long-lasting ethnic-based stigma.

Both of them claimed the city,[4] however unlike the Kurds and Arabs, the Turkmen did not take part in the ethnic-nationalists struggles, although they still tried to maintain their ethnic and cultural identity.

[3] The massacre took place exactly one year after the Iraqi coup d'etat in 1958, when Abdul-Karim Qasim became the Primer Minister of the country and declared the republic.

[7] On 14 July every ethnic group, including the Turkmen, was on the streets to attend the parade and celebrate the Iraqi coup d'etat.

[12] Although the army units were called in to restore orders, since majority of the soldiers were of Kurdish origin, they refused to fire on Kurds.

[13] The Turkmen tried to seek asylum in the Castel of Kirkuk (Turkish: Kale), however they also were attacked by the Kurds by firing mortars.

When the Iraqi army arrived, they declared curfew, during which the execution of Turkmen notables such as Ata Hayrullah, Cahit Fahrettin, and Kasim Nefteci continued.

One of the Turkmen witnesses, Kubat Mukhat, later described how his family was massacred:[14] The gunmen, who we had never seen before, opened fire on us in our house with automatic weapons.

There was a belief among the Iraqi Turkmen that the 1960 coup d'etat in Turkey against Adnan Menderes was organized by the Turkish army as a resistance against the censoring of the massacre.

[11] The Moscow radio also covered the event on 20 July, claiming that the organizers were a group called Turan, whose goal was to destabilize Kirkuk and Mosul, and make them be part of the Republic of Turkey.

[7] The massacre greatly influenced Turkmen literature and collective memory; it became central for survival in both cultural and political fields among the community.