Top Kurd: a Kirkuk vote or automatic KRG

KIRKUK, Iraq, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- A top Kurd in the Kirkuk Provincial Council warns of joining Iraqi Kurdistan automatically if a referendum for the oil-rich province doesn't take place.

Iraq's Constitution calls for a referendum for voters in Kirkuk and other disputed territories in Iraq's northern area, just outside the official area controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government.

A long process, capped by a referendum, was to take place by Dec. 31, 2007. A U.N.-orchestrated agreement was reached days before that date, giving all sides six months to figure out a solution. Iraq's Kurdish leaders demand a vote while Arabs, Turkomen and others want a negotiated settlement.

"We understand and are in favor of the U.N.'s idea of how to implement Article 140," said Councilmember Mohammed Kamal, who is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties in Iraq, the al-Mashriq newspaper reports. "If the international and Iraqi efforts fail we will be in favor of following the choice of the original inhabitants of Kirkuk as well as the choice of the official and legal Kirkuk council that was elected in 2005."

Saddam Hussein kicked Kurds and other ethnicities out of Kirkuk and the disputed territories, replacing them with Arab Muslims, mostly Sunni. He also redrew the provincial boundaries, taking out territories that, not coincidentally, included large oil reserves.

An estimated 15 billion of Iraq's 115 billion barrels are located in the Kirkuk fields. It's also the start of a pipeline sending crude to Iraq's biggest refinery, in Baiji, and exporting oil to Turkey.

"If the government waivers in implementing the article the solution will then be determined by the will of the inhabitants of Kirkuk and its councils," Kamal said. "They will deal with the Iraqi government through the KRG."

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd and leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, recently visited Kirkuk and met with leaders, including its governor.