KurdistanObserver.com

Zebari: Kurds Will Participate In Kirkuk Polls

BAGHDAD, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Iraqi Kurds will take part in the Kirkuk provincial elections, a senior Kurdish politician said on Tuesday, defusing a political crisis that had threatened to undermine polls in the strategic oil city.

Kurdish leaders made the decision after meeting with officials in charge of the ballot to discuss the franchise for thousands of Kurdish refugee who say Kirkuk is their home, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said.

"Kurdish participation is assured and guaranteed," said Zebari. "The Electoral Commission head met with the Kurdish leadership yesterday about the problem and we are optimistic about the solution," he told a news conference.

The provincial elections are due to take place simultaneously with national polls on Jan. 30.

Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen lay claim to the ethnically mixed city in northern Iraq, where sectarian and ethnic violence has simmered since Saddam Hussein was toppled last year.

The two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, have been refusing to field candidates for the Kirkuk provincial elections, saying registration favoured Arabs who moved there during Saddam’s rule under an "Arabisation" policy designed to undermine Kurdish influence.

Nechirvan Barzani, the KDP’s second-in-command, said last week Arab voting rights in Kirkuk should be curtailed and threatened to boycott the polls if the Kurds were not satisfied with registration.

Kurds regard Kirkuk as a Kurdish city and have remained vague on whether they will demand it to be part of a federal region they hope to be enshrined in the new constitution.

Statistics on the city were kept secret during Saddam’s rule. A 1957 census found the numbers of Turkmen, Arab, and Kurds to be roughly equal.

The polls will elect provincial councils for Kirkuk and the rest of Iraq’s regions, a Kurdish assembly for the Arbil and Sulaimaniya provinces and a parliament due to appoint a government and draft a new constitution.