Iraqi Constitution Court gets Kirkuk issue

BAGHDAD, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- The future of Iraq's oil-rich Kirkuk will be decided by the Constitutional Court, despite a new U.N. process, as the Kurds' dispute with Baghdad continues.

The issue was debated during recent sessions of Parliament, but disagreements are tense as to how Kirkuk and other disputed territories in the north should be resolved.

Meanwhile a delegation of the Kurdistan Regional Government will restart talks with the national government in Baghdad regarding controversial KRG oil deals and, apparently, changing Iraq's official flag.

"On Thursday morning, members of the Parliament's Constitutional Amendments Committee discussed with speaker Mahmoud al-Mashadani changing the Iraqi flag and Article 140 pertaining to the normalization of the situation in Kirkuk," Hammam Mahmoud, the committee's chief, told the Voices of Iraq news agency. "The parties agreed to refer the article to the Constitutional Court to determine its legality."

Saddam Hussein forcibly altered the demographic of the population in the disputed areas, as well as the geographic boundaries. A solution was agreed to as part of the 2005 Constitution. Article 140 and a related transitional law called for bringing residents back who were kicked out by Saddam Hussein and moving out those the dictator moved in.

Then there was to be a referendum, by the end of 2007, whereby eligible voters could decide the future of the area.

The KRG has been lobbying for voters to be able to choose to join its area, a region made of three northern provinces.

Iraqi Arabs and Turkomen, however, oppose such a move and say that the missed referendum deadline makes Article 140 null and void. The Kurds do not.

"Kirkuk, and other areas which are included in Article 140, will soon return to the Kurdistan region," said Aref Tayfour, a Kurd and deputy chief of Parliament, the Addustour newspaper reports.

The sides agreed late last month to a U.N.- and U.S.-brokered six-month extension in order to find a solution.

The semiautonomous Kurdish region flies the KRG flag, not the Iraqi flag, though insists it doesn't represent Kurdish independence.

KRG President Massoud Barzani said Kurds "would never raise the current flag because it still carries the three stars symbolizing the Baath Party" of Saddam Hussein.

The KRG has also passed a regional oil law and signed exploration and production deals with international oil companies. The Kurds claim the right to carry out such moves and say the national government is too slow in enacting national legislation.

Baghdad blames the KRG for insisting on too much control over the oil sector instead of allowing the central government to steer the oil policy. It has called KRG's deals illegal.

Jamal Abdullah, a KRG spokesman, told VOI the delegation from the KRG will be in Baghdad in the coming weeks to discuss the oil deal dispute and other issues such as the region's budget and funding for the KRG security forces.