ARBIL, Feb 17: Kurds rejected the idea of an Islamic republic in Iraq following the victory of the Shia-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) in last month's elections.

"Kurds will oppose setting up an Islamic republic if this question is asked by other political forces in Iraq," Adnan Mufti, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, headed by Jalal Talabani, said on Wednesday.

"Of course we are a Muslim people and we must respect our Muslim identity but we cannot pit religion against democracy," said Mr Mufti, himself a candidate for speaker of the autonomous Kuridsh parliament.

Sami Shursh, the unofficial minister of culture within the other heavyweight Kurdish party, Massud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party, agrees. "What Kurds want is a republican regime founded on the principle of rotation of power, with a parliamentary system, a separation of powers and a separation of religion and the state," he said.

The vast majority of Kurds in Iraq are Sunni. The PUK and the KDP swept to victory in the Kurdish provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Arbil and Dohuk, where they will control the autonomous parliament of 111 seats.

Their alliance is also due to take 75 seats in the National Assembly, having won the northern provinces of Tamim and Nineveh, home respectively to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and Mosul, Iraq's third city.

Kurds want Kirkuk to be the capital of their autonomous region. Several candidates on the winning Shia list have said they do not want to set up an Islamic republic in Iraq, but they have yet to dispel all fears. -AFP