"The Kirkuk tinderbox
Monday, January 24, 2005
K Gajendra Singh, TDN Guest Writer
There has been much media focus on the inauguration of U.S. President George W. Bush for his second term as well as on the Iraqi elections scheduled for Jan. 30. But the ethnically divided city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq remains a dangerous tinderbox. Even the losing U.S. presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry, who voted against the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as the next secretary of state in the Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, felt compelled to warn of possible turmoil in Kirkuk, which has been a bone of contention between Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens -- Turkey's ethnic cousins -- with Ankara regularly taking up their cause. "
More:Turkish Daily News
