ARBIL: The crisis over elections in Iraq is destabilizing the north of the country, where thousands of Kurds are campaigning for the right to remain autonomous amid fears they would be "sold out" by the coalition authorities.

Most Iraqi Kurds, who make up an estimated 15-20 per cent of the country's 25 million people, have enjoyed virtual independence under a US and British air umbrella operating from Turkey since the Gulf war in 1991.

They are now reluctant to give up their freedom to an as yet unspecified central government in Baghdad. In a series of public meetings, phone-ins, newspaper adverts and cultural events to mark "referendum week", Kurds in the northern self-rule area have been urged to sign a petition in support of the "right to determine their future".

Hundreds queued in the rain outside a tented booth blaring Kurdish pop music near the foot of Arbil's ancient citadel on Monday to sign the petition, which will be sent to the UN, the US-led coalition provisional authority and the Iraqi governing council. Thousands more signed it in the cities of Sulaimaniya and Dohuk.

"We want to convince the coalition authority and the United Nations of a referendum for the people of Kurdistan, without outside interference," said Azzad Mohammed, 23, a university student.

Organizers are calling for mass demonstrations in Iraqi Kurdistan's major cities on February 28, the day the "basic law" that will guide Iraq through the transitional period to national elections is published.

"We want to show the rest of the country and the world that federalism is the very least of our rights," said Sherko Bekas, a poet and a founding member of the referendum movement.

Although many Kurds are enthusiastically pro-American after the removal of the Ba'athist regime, they are suspicious that political expediency and the US presidential elections will result in hasty decisions on Iraq's future which could mean the country is handed over to majority Shias.

Religious leaders in the south are demanding direct elections to the transitional government, something many Kurds, as well as Sunni Arabs, reject as being impractical. Kurdish leaders on the Iraqi governing council in Baghdad want a guaranteed federal region which would include historically Kurdish areas formerly under the control of Saddam Hussein to be written into the basic law.-Dawn/The Guardian News Service.