By Michael Christie BAGHDAD, Nov 29 (Reuters) - The United Nations has delayed a report on disputed areas in Iraq, including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, until after local elections next year because it might have stirred tensions, the U.N. envoy to Iraq said on Saturday. "The U.N. is there to pour water on fire and not oil on fire," Staffan de Mistura, head of the U.N. mission in Iraq, told Reuters in an interview. He said the U.N. analysis of Kirkuk, a city contested by Kurds, Turkmen and Arabs, might have been used before the January 31 election to stoke discord, rather than as the tool for finding a resolution that it was meant to be. "And therefore the water will come after the election," de Mistura added. The fate of cities claimed by different ethnic and sectarian groups remains a powderkeg issue that could trigger a resurgence of the bloodshed that tore through Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and ousting of former dictator Saddam Hussein. Bodies piled up by the hundreds as majority Shi'ites battled minority Sunni Arabs who had dominated Iraq under Saddam and who initially sided with al Qaeda in confronting the invaders. While car bombs and suicide bombings remain common, the violence has fallen to four-year lows, feeding hopes that Iraq has begun to tread a path of increasing stability ahead of the local elections and also a general election next year. But disputes over cities like Kirkuk are far from resolved. Sitting over potentially rich oil fields, Kirkuk is claimed by ethnic Kurds as their ancestral home although it lies outside the semi-autonomous region run by the Kurdistan Regional Government in northern Iraq. Kurds say Kirkuk was heavily repopulated by Arabs moved there by Saddam to try to invalidate Kurdish claims to the city. Turkmen residents there also oppose Kurdish efforts to have Kirkuk included in Kurdistan. Tensions between the increasingly assertive Shi'ite-led coalition of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and its Kurdish partners are viewed as one possible roadblock to stability. The dispute stalled efforts to hold provincial elections in Kirkuk. The rest of the country will vote in January but Kirkuk will have to wait for its own ballot. Iraq's constitution calls for a referendum on Kirkuk's fate, but that has been postponed. The U.N. report on Kirkuk and 30-to-40 other disputed areas consists of analyses of demographics, histories, geographies, ethnic makeup, politics and economies. It published its findings on the first four, less-contested districts in June. De Mistura had said earlier this year that one report on Kirkuk would be published by October in a bid for a "grand deal" to end tensions. The date was then moved to end-November. March now seemed a more logical date, after the elections that will determine the political makeup of Iraq on the ground, in its cities, towns and governorships, de Mistura said. "The timing of the presentation of the report before elections take place could have been interpreted, or used, instead of as ... part of the road map for a political calm, as an opportunity for some tensions," de Mistura said. He said the U.N.'s aim was to continue working on the reports so they can be handed to Iraqi officials when they are ready to sit down and negotiate the destiny of the areas. "In other words, the reports are an ingredient which should be feeding the political dialogue, and the time that you feed the political dialogue needs to be well-timed," he said. That position might frustrate Kurdish authorities, eager for a decision. The United Nations was taking too long, the Kurdish Regional Government said on Saturday.(Editing by Michael Roddy)
The tail section of the Air New Zealand Airbus A320 airliner is seen above water in the Mediterranean Sea off France's southwest coast in this handout released to Reuters on November ...
