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Power-sharing deal could end dispute over Kirkuk elections

Iraq's Kirkuk governorate will hold elections this year — something that hasn't happened in more than a decade — and officials hope the voting will end the dispute over running the province.
An internally displaced Iraqi man shows his ink-stained finger to the media after voting at a polling centre during the country's provincial elections in Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, April 20, 2013. Iraqis voted for provincial councils on Saturday in their first ballot since U.S. troops left the country, a key measure of political strength before parliamentary elections next year. Iraqi politics are deeply split along sectarian lines with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government mired in c

BAGHDAD — For the first time since 2005, Kirkuk governorate in Iraq will hold elections Dec. 22 to select its local governing council. Parliament included the multiethnic province of the Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens in the provincial election law approved March 3.

The decision follows an agreement among the three groups' representatives in parliament and was greatly welcomed by all segments, especially the Kurds, who for years have demanded that elections be held in Kirkuk. Khalid al-Mafraji, an Arab parliament member from Kirkuk, told Al-Monitor that negotiations took more than a year.

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