Kirkuk ethnic rage will test Bush hopes for Iraqis

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/MAC961922.htm

KIRKUK, Iraq, June 29 (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush has staked his Iraq venture on Iraqis' will and ability, as he put it, to set their "past behind them and come together".

Nowhere is the challenge more palpable than in the shabby streets of Kirkuk, a city perched atop one of the world's great lakes of oil, yet impoverished by ethnic rivalries that have made it the potential flashpoint of an Iraqi civil war.

Reconcile the following two points of view, one from a Kurd, the other a Sunni Arab, and Kirkuk might find peace:

"Kirkuk historically is in Kurdistan. That's a 100 percent fact. Our main goal is to make Kirkuk part of Kurdistan again."

[eleny]

1. The Kurds are just waiting for the chance to get their action on

Join with the Kurds of Turkey and form their own country. Unrest and war in that region will never end.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Boatload of Kurds in Syria and Iran also. Probably Jordan too? n/t

[eissa]

2. Well, then I want in too!

Arbil, Nineveh (Mosul), Nohadra (Dohuk), Zakho, and dozens of other villages in the north are undeniably Assyrian in origin. Do we get those back from the Kurds that engaged in land grabs and pushed off the indigenous people of that region in order to form their so-called country?