BAGHDAD (AFP) — The UN will by the end of October offer a package of "options" to resolve territorial disputes in Iraq, including in volatile Kirkuk claimed by both Arabs and Kurds, an official said Wednesday.
"We will present between September and October options for a grand deal for the disputed areas including Kirkuk, which is the hottest issue in Iraq these days," said Staffan de Mistura, representative in Iraq for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Twelve regions in northern Iraq, including oil-rich Kirkuk province, are currently disputed by various ethnic sects.
The United Nations in June provided a report to Iraq's presidency council on four of the regions -- Akra, Hamdaniyah and Mahmur in the restive province of Nineveh and Mandali in the violence-wracked central province of Diyala.
The reports on seven others will be given to the council by September, Mistura said.
Among the seven, four regions are in Nineveh -- Tal Afar, Sinjar, Turke and Shaikhan.
The other disputed regions are Kifri in the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah, Khanakin in Diyala and Tuz in the central mainly Sunni Arab province of Salaheddin.
De Mistura said the UN was approaching these disputes by tackling the smaller regions first in a bid to finally resolve the controversial issue of Kirkuk.
"It's like getting to the hard core of the problem by addressing the soft areas as an example of political discussion," he told reporters at his office in Baghdad's heavily fortified diplomatic area, the Green Zone.
This will prove that there is a "process of political give and take which applied to the easiest place" and "should in a way apply to the most difficult place which is Kirkuk," he added.
De Mistura said he hoped the UN proposals would be welcomed.
"What I am hoping is that by October the options that we will be coming up will be taken seriously, constructively by all parties," he said.
Thereafter "a political formula, compromise will be identified in order to give a peaceful and fair solution for the future of Kirkuk which then can be eventually sanctioned by a confirmatory referendum."
Kirkuk, which has a Kurdish majority but substantial Arab and Turkmen minorities, has been a source of at times deadly ethnic tension since Saddam Hussein was toppled in the 2003 US-led invasion.
Saddam had placed Kirkuk outside the region of the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, which has acted essentially as an independent entity since 1991.
But Iraqi Kurds, many of whom see Kirkuk's oil wealth as vital to the future viability of their region, have called for the province to be part of their autonomous region.
Iraq's parliament has proposed evenly dividing powers in the local parliament between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen but the Kurds bitterly oppose the plan, pointing to their superior numbers.
Under the Iraqi constitution, a referendum was to have been held by December last year on longstanding Kurdish claims for Kirkuk and its oil wealth to be incorporated in their autonomous region in the north.
But in December, Kurdish leaders agreed to a six-month postponement of the vote at the recommendation of the United Nations. The vote has yet to be held amid ongoing demographic concerns.
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