|
Baghdad: The United Nations has delayed a report on disputed areas in Iraq, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, until after local elections next year because it might have stirred tensions, the UN envoy to Iraq said on Saturday.
"The UN is there to pour water on fire and not oil on fire," Staffan de Mistura, head of the UN mission in Iraq, said.
He said the UN analysis of Kirkuk, a city contested by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs, might have been used before the January 31 election to stoke discord, rather than as the tool for finding a resolution that it was meant to be.
"And therefore the water will come after the election," de Mistura added.
The fate of cities claimed by different ethnic and sectarian groups remains a powderkeg issue that could trigger a resurgence of the bloodshed that tore through Iraq after the 2003 US-led invasion and ousting of former dictator Saddam Hussain.
Bodies piled up by the hundreds as majority Shiite battled minority Sunnis who had dominated Iraq under Saddam and who initially sided with Al Qaida in confronting the invaders.
Fall in violence
While car bombs and suicide bombings remain common, the violence has fallen to four-year lows, feeding hopes that Iraq has begun to tread a path of increasing stability ahead of the local elections and also a general election next year. But disputes over cities like Kirkuk are far from resolved.
Sitting over potentially rich oil fields, Kirkuk is claimed by ethnic Kurds as their ancestral home although it lies outside the semi-autonomous region run by the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq.
|
