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Baghdad: Iraqi political leaders reached a tentative compromise on Monday that could resolve a stalemate over the fate of city of Kirkuk and allow local elections to go ahead, the deputy speaker of parliament said.
Lawmakers rescheduled for today a vote on a provincial election law, which had been held up by wrangling over Kirkuk that has threatened to escalate into renewed ethnic strife.
Washington has been pressing hard on Iraqi leaders to resolve the stand-off before it jeopardises the elections, originally scheduled for October 1 and seen as vital to reconciling the country's factions and solidifying its fragile democracy.
"The new date has been set after fresh hope appeared of reaching an agreement," said Khalid Al Attiya, deputy parliament speaker and a member of Iraq's largest Shiite bloc.
A vote had been planned for Sunday but it was scrapped when lawmakers failed to agree on how the elections would affect Kirkuk, which minority Kurds want to make part of their semi-autonomous northern region.
Rift
Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a member of the Shiite majority, gathered rival politicians at his home to broker an end to the stand-off over the elections, which the US and United Nations are urging Iraq to hold this year.
Washington hopes the vote will ease sectarian strife by giving Sunni Arabs a greater political voice after they stayed away from the last local elections in 2005. But wrangling over the law has exposed a rift with another minority, the Kurds.
An initial vote to approve the bill last month was marred by a walk-out by Kurdish politicians, who oppose measures they see as robbing them of control of their ancestral capital.
The Bill passed without Kurdish support, but President Jalal Talabani, himself a Kurd, vetoed it and sent it back to parliament for a second vote.
If the vote on the Bill is delayed until after parliament's summer break, it could put the polls off until well into 2009.
"If this issue is not solved in the next two days and the rivals do not reach to a compromise, the vote on the bill will be delayed until after the summer break," said Hashim Al Taei, a member of the main Sunni Arab bloc.
One of the most divisive issues is whether or not the provincial election law will include a reference to a referendum on whether Kirkuk will be included in the Kurdish autonomous region. The referendum is called for in Iraq's constitution and Kurds believe it could tip the scales in their favour. But Arab and Turkmen residents oppose making Kirkuk part of Kurdistan.
Many Arabs moved to the city as part of Saddam Hussain's bid to "arabise" the area, and some now fear the Kurds want to drive them out. The Kurds' insistence on including the referendum article "brings the situation back to ground zero," Taei said.
Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish lawmaker, said yesterday's talks centred on a UN proposal designed to defuse tensions, which would set up a joint administration for Kirkuk as part of a temporary power-sharing solution.
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