Fault lines run deep over Kirkuk's future in Iraq

By Sherko Raouf

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - The failure of Iraqi politicians to resolve competing ethnic claims for the oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk is storing up explosive problems for the country's future.

After months of debate, parliament shut for a summer break without agreement on a new law paving the way for the first provincial elections since 2005 -- and it was divisions over how to hold the vote in Kirkuk that scuppered a deal.

"Postponing the election law will complicate the situation in Kirkuk and lead to a struggle between the factions and eventually a civil war may erupt," said Ali Ibrahim, an Arab.

"The parliament and the government has to work seriously to resolve the situation", he said.

Kirkuk sits atop oil reserves that supply a fifth of Iraq's export income, and the country's Kurds want to fold a city they consider their ancestral capital into their autonomous northern region of Kurdistan.

But Arab and Turkmen residents want Kirkuk to remain part of a federal Iraq run by the government of Shi'ite Arab Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki from the capital Baghdad.

Iraq's Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani travelled to Kirkuk on Friday saying he sought to calm tensions.

"We want to solve the problem, not ignite the problem and I came to Kirkuk with a message from the Kurdish people which is the message of brotherhood, love and invitation for understanding," Barzani told Kirkuk's provincial council.