Thousands of Arabs staged a noisy rally in Iraq's northern city of Hawija Saturday to protest fresh moves to incorporate the oil province of Kirkuk into the autonomous Kurdish region, witnesses said.
The demonstrators, who also included Turkmen, carried banners reading, "Kirkuk is an Iraqi province and runs in the blood of all Arabs" and "No to annexation of Kirkuk and yes to peaceful coexistence."
"More than 4,000 Arabs demonstrated today," said Hussein Ali al-Juburi, head of the United Arabic bloc and also of the Hawija council.
"Some of them came by car, others came on foot to confirm their total rejection of the decision of the Kurdish bloc in Kirkuk to combine the province with Kurdistan," Juburi said.
"We were surprised by the decision of the council. It has created a crisis in Kirkuk and will have dire harmful consequences for the country " he added.
"It is important to solve the Kirkuk issue by compromises between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen," he said.
The demonstration in Hawija, some 50 kilometres (31 miles) west of Kirkuk was sparked by the Kurdish bloc voting unanimously at an extraordinary meeting of the provincial council on Thursday to demand the inclusion of the province into the northern Kurdish region.
The two major Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), occupy 26 seats in the 41-member council, the Arabs six while the Turkmen Front has the remaining nine.
Under the Iraqi constitution, a referendum had due to be held by 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.
Kirkuk has been gripped by ethnic tension since the US-led invasion of 2003, with Arab and Turkmen residents fearful they would be marginalised if the city were handed over to the Kurds.
Tribal leader Burhan al-Assi was adamant that Kirkuk would remain an Iraqi city.
"We reject any moves to annex it into another region," he told the rally.
Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh on Friday urged all parties in Kirkuk to stay calm and "resort to the law and the constitution."
"The government rejects any unilateral step to change the status of the city of Kirkuk and considers it illegal and unconstitutional," he added.
With provincial elections due either later this year or in early 2008, the status of Kirkuk has again fallen under the spotlight.
On Monday, at least 22 people were killed in a suicide bombing during a protest rally in Kirkuk and gunfire in the panic that followed, officials said.
The attacker detonated his explosives in the middle of crowds protesting the election law, which is currently being reviewed by the Iraqi parliament.
Kurdish officials fear the parliament will approve legislation that will delay local elections in Kirkuk, fail to address issues relating to power sharing and force the removal of the current security force, which is mainly controlled by Kurds.
