By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - The new president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region called on parliament Sunday to recognize the Kurdish identity of Kirkuk, the oil-rich and ethnically mixed city that Kurds want to annex as their capital.

Masoud Barzani, the veteran Kurdish guerrilla leader who was elected last week to lead Iraq's northern Kurdish-dominated region, also called for a repeal of ``all demographic and political changes the former regime implemented in Kirkuk and other Kurdish areas.''

Saddam Hussein promoted ethnic cleansing of the city during his rule, deporting most Kurds - whom he saw as subversives - while relocating fellow Arabs into the northern city.

Since the first Gulf War, the Kurds - under the protection of U.S. and British air patrols - have run large parts of territory they had historically populated in northern Iraq. Huge numbers of Kurds also live in southeastern Turkey, Syria and neighboring Iran. The minority people have never had a country of their own.

Barzani's election last week by Iraqi Kurdistan's regional council gave the region its first single formal leader since it became autonomous under U.S.-protection in 1991. Until last week, Barzani had ruled a section of Iraqi Kurdistan, and his one-time foe and now president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, was in charge of another.

Speaking before parliament in Baghdad, Barzani called for the implementation of the right to return to Kirkuk by all Iraqis as provided for in Iraq's interim constitution and said ``we must ... acknowledge its Kurdish identity.''

The Kurds, Washington's most reliable allies in Iraq, comprise 15 percent to 20 percent of Iraq's estimated 26 million people. Together with the Shiite majority, they had been oppressed for decades by the Sunni Arab minority.

The question of whether Kirkuk should join the Kurdish autonomous region or remain part of the remainder of Iraq is expected to be settled in an as yet unscheduled referendum. The city's 1 million residents also include Arabs - both Sunni and Shiite Muslims - as well as Turkomen, who are mostly Sunnis.

The Kurds are also seeking to annex parts of the province of Diyala close to the Iranian border, arguing that they too are part of Iraqi Kurdistan.