U.S. military boss urges Iraq to settle differences

By Andrew Gray

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - The top U.S. military commander urged rival factions in Iraq's disputed city of Kirkuk, the heart of a bitter feud over land and oil, to reconcile ahead of the coming U.S. military withdrawal.

Sandstorms grounded Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, after he touched down on Monday in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, and delayed his plans to travel to other parts of Iraq.

Mullen met with political leaders from Kirkuk, the oil-producing region at the centre of a conflict that is seen as the biggest threat to Iraqi stability just as the sectarian bloodshed unleashed by the 2003 invasion subsides.

"The political challenges that remain in Iraq are ... very central to this region," Mullen said after meeting Arab, Kurd, Turkmen and Christian leaders in central Kirkuk.

"My message to them today was: we're leaving and you'd better figure it out," he told reporters accompanying him.

Kirkuk, like several other ethnically mixed areas, remains riven by violence as conditions in much of Iraq improve.

Police say Kirkuk attacks, including two bombs last month that killed 100 people between them, may have stoked reprisals.

Kurds want to fold the northern region, which U.S. officials say could hold as much as 4 percent of world oil reserves, into their northern enclave. Turkmen and Arabs strenuously object.