Kirkuk Election Deal Tips Power To Kurds, Angers Arabs, Turkmen

The agreement, reached with the Iraqi government Friday and formally approved by the Kurds' regional parliament Saturday, clears the way for an estimated 100,000 Kurdish voters expelled from Kirkuk under Saddam Hussein's regime, to vote for the Tamim province's new government.

"It's around 100,000 voters," said Adel Lami, a senior member of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission.

Potential voters would have to furnish proof they had been uprooted by the old regime since 1975 when Saddam's policy of Arabisation began in earnest, Lami said.

Kurdish leaders rejoiced at the deal, which put them on the road to claiming the city for northern Kurdistan, even as it risked enflaming ethnic tensions.

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan chief Jalal Talabani said the deal paved the way "to normalise the situation in Kirkuk by allowing back the displaced (Kurdish) people... and also to drive back those Arab (settlers) who came to Kirkuk."

The influx of Kurdish voters will give the long-suffering population a solid majority in the province's parliament and destroy the carefully preserved equilibrium in Tamim, where outside observers fear ethnic feuding could spill over into large-scale violence.

Dilshad Miran, a Kurdish parliament representative assigned to Baghdad, said: "Our main concern as a principle was the Arabisation process. They (Arab settlers) should not be allowed to vote in the Kirkuk region."

Tamim, with an estimated 1.2 million people and rich in lucrative oil reserves, has an almost even split among Kurds and Arab Muslims, with the remaining 10 percent of the population consisting of Turkmen and Christians.

The communities have observed a tenuous truce for the 21 months since Saddam fell from power as they vied for power and tussled over the legacy of the Baath party's policy of uprooting Kurds and resettling Arabs in the region.

The issue of displaced Kurds was due to be taken up by an Iraqi property claims commission that was established to arbitrate property disputes between the estimated tens of thousands of Kurds who lost their homes and Arabs settlers.

But the commission, created under the defunct US occupation, failed to adjudicate any claims until this past autumn and Iraq's interim parliament recommended sacking the commission's director last month over the sluggish pace.

Iraq's US-sponsored interim constitution, approved last spring, defers the issue of Kirkuk's final status until after the country's permanent constitution is ratified at the end of 2005 and a census is conducted.

While the new election agreement does not affect the timeframe on Kirkuk's final status, it paves the way for the Kurds to control Tamim's 40-seat provincial council.

The Kurds had previously held 15 seats; Arabs 11; Turkmen nine and Christians seven, but with the estimated influx of nearly an additional 100,000 votes, the Kurds will be in the driver's seat as the city's future is determined.

News of the deal sparked outrage among Kirkuk's Arabs and Turkmen.

"We are studying all options including the choice of withdrawing from the elections if we are sure that names of outsiders who will vote in favor of the Kurds, are going to be registered," Riyadh Sari Kahiya, a senior Turkmen leader in Kirkuk, told AFP.

"A month or so ago we warned through a meeting held with the Tukrmen parties... that this move will result in denying Arabs and Turkmen our legitimate rights in the provisional council," said Sheikh Ghassan Muszhir al-Azsi, a local Arab leader.

The US military worries that a Kurdish election victory will encourage the Kurds to make a landgrab for territory below the "green line", the boundary separating Kirkuk and Diyala and Nineveh province from northern Kurdistan.

"I think Kirkuk is one of the ones we are most concerned about, simply because it is such a diverse city," a military intelligence officer told AFP.