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| Iraq |
| UN suggests power-sharing for Kirkuk |
| 2009-03-31 |
| Seeking to head off an explosion of ethnic violence, the United Nations will call for a power-sharing system of government for Iraq's deeply divided region of Kirkuk in the oil-rich north. A draft UN plan, outlined to The Associated Press by two Western officials, aims to defuse dangerous tensions. Kurds, a majority in the region, have been trying to wrest control from Arabs, Turkomen and other rival ethnic groups. If open warfare breaks out, it could jeopardise the US goal of stability across Iraq before elections at year's end. The UN has played only a minor role in Iraq since 2003, when its Baghdad headquarters was destroyed by a truck bomb. Now, officials in Kirkuk say the UN efforts may be the last chance for a peaceful outcome. Without a resolution, "I think Kirkuk will be like a TNT barrel and explode and burn everybody," Iraqi parliament lawmaker Mohammad Mahdi Ameen Al Bayati, a Turkoman, said in an interview. Deputy Governor Rakan Saeed Al Jubouri, a Sunni Arab, agreed. "Violence is very easy to start in Iraq," he said in a separate interview. |
| Posted by:Fred |