KIRKUK, Iraq (AFP) — Thousands of Iraqi Arabs have accepted financial compensation to leave the northern city of Kirkuk, which leaders of the autonomous Kurdish region are seeking to control, a minister said Thursday.
Around 2,000 Arabs living there had agreed to return to their home provinces under an initiative launched by the committee in charge of overseeing relations in Kirkuk, Environment Minister Nermeen Othman said.
"The supreme committee... finished approving 2,000 applications submitted by Arab residents in Kirkuk who want to receive compensation of 15,000 dollars (10,600 euros) to return to their original residence places," she told AFP.
Technical problems related to changing ID registers had prevented the payment of cheques so far, but the applicants had been approved and would be paid in the next few days, she said.
According to Othman, herself a Kurd, a budget of 200 million dollars has been allocated by the Iraq government to pay the compensation packages of those willing to leave the city.
Tensions between Kirkuk's Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen communities have risen ahead of a constitutionally mandated popular referendum on the oil-rich city's future, which is supposed to be held this year.
One million Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens live in Kirkuk although the exact split between the communities is not officially known.
Kirkuk's Kurds, who were chased out by Saddam Hussein in the 1970s but returned in force following his overthrow and now effectively control the city, would like to see it join the Kurdish Regional Government.
The new Iraqi constitution adopted after the US-led invasion in March 2003 stipulates that Kirkuk's status must be sorted out before the end of 2007 by a referendum.
No date has been fixed for the referendum, which the Kurds have been strongly encouraging as they are confident of winning a majority, but which Baghdad says cannot be held until after a proper census.
Kirkuk's Sunni Arabs -- including many brought to the area in the 1970s during Saddam-era ethnic cleansing -- and its centuries-old Turkmen community want to postpone the vote until the dust of war clears.
The political stalemate is a dilemma for US policy-makers trying to balance their support for Iraq's constitution with their oft-expressed hope that Kirkuk's future can be settled through consensus.
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