DAMASCUS, Syria, Oct. 17 (UPI) -- An Iraqi Kurdish leader urged Iraq's neighbors against interfering with the issue of the northern city of Kirkuk, which the Kurds claim as theirs.
The head of the Democratic Party of Kurdistan, Masoud Barzani, said the oil-rich Iraqi city would become a "model for tolerance among all the religious and ethnic people of Iraq."
Speaking in Damascus after talks with Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam, Barzani said Kirkuk was part of historic Kurdistan and a part of Iraq, "just like any other Iraqi city."
Barzani, however, warned against trying to change "the demographic reality" of the city, adding it was an internal issue in which neighboring countries should not interfere.
He insisted Kirkuk would not become the "Balkans of Iraq, but a model for national co-existence among the Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Caldians, Assyrians "and all those who live in Iraq."
