SULEIMANIYA: Kurdish former rebel groups in northern Iraq are busy drawing up their political future within a federal state, and are eyeing the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, which remained under Saddam Hussein’s rule after the 1991 Gulf war, as their regional capital.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) have set aside bitter turf battles that left thousands dead when they ruled Iraq’s three northern provinces under Western protection in the 1990s, as well as claims for independence.

Both Barzani and Talabani hold seats on Iraq’s interim 25-member Governing Council and were named on Tuesday as two of nine members who will share the rotating presidency.

“Our hope is to see Kirkuk become the capital” of Kurdistan, says KDP official Gadir Aziz Jabbari in reference to the oil-rich city where the Baath Party regime instigated a policy of Arab colonization from 1974.

The mayor of PUK-held Suleimaniya, Aiso Shak Norey, agrees: “The capital of Kurdistan will be Kirkuk or Arbil,” a KDP stronghold 100 kilometres further north.

The KDP and PUK have already compiled historical documents proving that Kirkuk was indeed Kurdish, Jabbari said.

“Saddam Hussein wanted to make it an Arab town and had even forbidden giving children Kurdish names,” he said.

In exchange for Kirkuk, Kurdish officials seem to have abandoned their claim to northern Iraq’s biggest city of Mosul, 160 kilometres northwest of Kirkuk.

“The city is Arab even if the villages around are mainly Kurdish,” Jabbari said.

The 23 million plus Kurds who straddle Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey are one of the world’s largest ethnic groups without their own country, and their predicament has been thrust to the forefront since the US-led coalition ousted Saddam’s regime in April.

Mayor Norey said Kurds remained fearful of Turkey, which has for decades been battling its own Kurdish rebels and has voiced increased concern — shared by Iran and Syria — that a post-Saddam Iraq may set the stage for a breakaway Kurdish region.—AFP