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KIRKUK, Iraq -- Relative stability and oil wealth
are drawing jobs and opportunities to the northern
city of Kirkuk, which will soon be the first major
city in Iraq to take charge of its own defense.
But the same qualities that are leading businesses
to relocate from Baghdad have made ethnically
divided Kirkuk a major bone of contention as Kurdish
and Shi'ite factions wrestle over the shape of
Iraq's new government.
While much of Iraq struggles with roadside bombs and
suicide attacks, Kurdistan -- the northern region
where Kurds enjoyed more than a decade of virtual
autonomy within a U.S.-enforced no-fly zone -- is
prospering.
Kurds living abroad have begun to return home to set
up new businesses. Construction is booming. And with
oil fields containing 40 percent of Iraq's reserves
nearby, opportunities are plentiful.
The multiethnic city of nearly 1 million has begun
to attract investment from other parts of Iraq, said
Maj. Darren Blagburn, intelligence officer for the
U.S. Army's 116th Regiment in Kirkuk.
"We're seeing a lot of businesses move to Kirkuk
from Baghdad," he said.
Local security forces, manned mostly by former
members of the Kurdish militia, the peshmerga, are
also more capable than those in other parts of Iraq.
As a result, the U.S. Army plans within weeks to
make Kirkuk the first city in former Ba'athist-controlled
areas to complete the transition from foreign to
local protection.
All this has made the city a critical prize in the
more than two months of negotiations for a new
government between a Kurdish faction led by Jalal
Talabani and a Shi'ite faction led by Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
The Kurds want to annex the city and make it the
capital of an autonomous Kurdistan, arguing that
Kirkuk holds the same significance for them that
Jerusalem holds for the Jews.
Mr. Talabani will have serious problems with his
followers -- many of whom favor outright
independence -- if he trades away that dream.
"In order to keep a unified, peaceful Iraq, Talabani
must keep the Kurds back," Maj. Blagburn said.
But neither can Mr. al-Jaafari easily give away the
city, which was subject to an "Arabization" campaign
under Saddam Hussein and now is home to roughly
equal numbers of Kurds, Shi'ites and Sunni Arabs.
Baghdad has a monopoly on the state's oil production
and is using most of Kirkuk's oil revenue to fund
reconstruction elsewhere in Iraq -- something that
could end if the Kurds get what they want.
There are fears that any Kurdish attempt at taking
control of Kirkuk could instigate large-scale
violence owing to what Maj. Blagburn calls the
city's "competing social demographics."
Mr. Talabani so far has been careful to acknowledge
Kurdish sentiment about Kirkuk without committing to
any course of action that would put him at odds with
the new government.
But in a recent interview with United Press
International, he described the city as sacred to
the Kurds. "Historically and demographically
speaking, Kirkuk was never part of Iraq, but part of
Kurdistan," he said.
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