By the map I just looked at in, "Sanctioning Saddam:The Politics of Intervention in Iraq, " by Sarah Graham-Brown, I.B. Tauris, 1999, in association w/MERIP, the best leftist journal on the Middle East (also see Khamsin, from socialists and communists struggling there), Kirkuk is outside the area of the two Kurdish administered zones run by the KDP and PUK. Many newstories have said that the Turkish Army is going to try to prevent the peshmurgas from seizing their patrimony. <URL: http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,6043445%255E401,00.htm l raq denies oilfield sabotage From correspondents in Baghdad 26feb03 IRAQ has said an accident started a fire at an oilfield in the city of Kirkuk, dismissing talk of sabotage. "There was no sabotage or bomb (blast)," information ministry director general Uday al-Taei said today."A fire broke out in an oil well and will be put out by tomorrow. "It is a minor incident, such as happens when drilling wells." Kirkuk residents who had travelled to Kurdish-held Arbil said earlier a huge explosion had occurred in an oilfield in the city overnight. They said the blast was heard in many parts of Kirkuk, and while officials blamed technical faults, they thought it was more probable it had been caused by sabotage. It was not clear if the incident caused any casualties. Arbil, about 80km north of Kirkuk, is in part of northern Iraq which escaped the control of President Saddam Hussein's regime at the end of the 1991 Gulf War. It is held by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which shares control of the Kurdish region with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)
-- Michael Pugliese
"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy