[continued from previous message] 
  
 The federal Iraqi government has denounced the Kurdish deals as 
 violations of national sovereignty. The mounting conflict between 
 Baghdad and the Kurdistan regional government is facing multiple 
 flashpoints, including a referendum, due to be held by the end of 
 2007, to decide whether the city of Kirkuk, at the center of one of 
 the world's largest oilfields, should be attached to the 
 Kurdish-controlled region. 
  
 The city and province of Kirkuk have a mixed population of Kurds, 
 Sunni and Shiite Arabs and Turkomen, but the Kurdish parties have been 
 resettling Kurds there in an effort to create a majority, a mirror 
 reversal of the policy pursued by Saddam Hussein, who pushed Kurds out 
 and sought "Arabization" of the province. 
  
 Perhaps the most provocative action taken in the tense region came in 
 September, when Ray Hunt, CEO of Hunt Oil and a longtime Texas 
 confidant of the Bush family, flew into Kurdistan and signed an oil 
 exploration agreement with the regional government, without informing 
 Baghdad. 
  
 According to a report in the Dallas Morning News, the hill of Jebel 
 Semroot, near the village of Assyan, where Hunt Oil expects to begin 
 drilling next year, is not even in the territory of the three Kurdish 
 provinces ruled by the regional government. It lies across the border 
 in Nineveh, another province with a mixed population of Kurds, 
 Turkomen and Arabs, in which the Kurds are a distinct minority. 
  
 "Trouble is, Jebel Semroot isn't in Kurdish territory," the News 
 reported. "If Hunt Oil drills in these rocks, the company will be 
 helping the Kurds absorb lands in Nineveh province that were 
 historically Kurdish but are still claimed by Iraq's Arab Sunnis." 
  
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