Kurds want Kirkuk in Kurdistan region

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Kurdish councilors called on Thursday for the disputed Iraqi city of Kirkuk to become part of the Kurdistan region, a move that could stoke tensions with the city's Arab and ethnic Turkmen communities.

The call was made at a provincial council session boycotted by Arab and Turkmen members. It followed several days of street protests by Kurds against a local election law that would delay voting in the oil-rich northern city in future local polls.

Kurds regard multi-ethnic Kirkuk, which lies just outside the largely autonomous region of Kurdistan, as their ancient capital. Arabs and ethnic Turkmen want Kirkuk to stay under central government authority.

"The Kurdish list put forward a request that Kirkuk be included in Kurdistan," said Mohammed Kamal, a Kurdish member of Kirkuk's provincial council.

The call was for both the city and surrounding province, which some also call Kirkuk, to join Kurdistan.

Arab and Turkmen councilors reacted angrily.

"We completely reject Kirkuk becoming a part of Kurdistan and consider this the beginning of a crisis and strife in the city. It could lead to civil war in Kirkuk," said Mohammed al-Jubouri, an Arab member of the provincial council.

Kurds hold more than half the seats of Kirkuk's provincial council. But the head of the council, a Kurd, acknowledged that the absence of the other two main factions made the call to include Kirkuk in Kurdistan unconstitutional.

Kurds are among Iraq's largest minority groups.

TURKISH PM WORRIED

Instability in northern Iraq could impact neighboring Turkey, and a statement from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's office said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had spoken to him about the Kurdish councilors' request.

"Prime Minister Erdogan expressed his anxiety about this step," the statement said.

Despite blossoming trade between Turkey and northern Iraq, Ankara is also concerned that the emergence of a wealthy Kurdish independent state could fuel the separatist insurgency among Kurds in its own southeast.

Talabani told Erdogan that the Kurdish councilors' request should not be considered a call to include Kirkuk in Kurdistan, but only a "threat (to do so) if no agreement is reached regarding the provincial election law", the statement said.

A provincial elections law that would allow for local polls in Iraq later this year or early 2009 has been stalled because of a dispute over what to do about voting in Kirkuk.

Kurdish lawmakers last week walked out of a parliamentary session in Baghdad that passed the provincial election law. Talabani, a Kurd, then rejected it as unconstitutional given a faction of parliament boycotted the vote.

The law would have delayed voting in Kirkuk, assigned fixed seat allocations to each ethnic group and replaced Kurdish Peshmerga security forces in the city with troops from other parts of Iraq, all measures Kurdish parliamentarians rejected.

Iraq's presidency council must ratify any new legislation.

The elections law has since been handed back to parliament. Lawmakers will hold a special session on Sunday to try to resolve their differences after parliament broke for its summer recess on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Waleed Ibrahim, Khalid al-Ansary and Wisam Mohammed: Writing by Mohammed Abbas, Editing by Robert Hart)