DAMASCUS, Oct 18 (AFP) - One of the main Kurdish leaders in Iraq, Massoud Barzani, said on Monday he was sure the northern oil city of Kirkuk would become a part of a largely autonomous Kurdistan within Iraq.
"We are sure that once the situation in Kirkuk is normalised, the organisation of a referendum (will show) that the vast majority of inhabitants are Kurds.
"We are sure consequently that Kirkuk will return to (Iraqi) Kurdistan," Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), told a news conference in the Syrian capital as he wound up a three-day visit.
Earlier this month, hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in Kirkuk to call for a referendum on the city's status, but it has yet to be confirmed whether such a plebiscite will take place.
The two main Kurdish parties, the KDP and the Kurdistan Patriotic Union, both opened political offices in the northern Iraqi city after the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003 and have not hidden their ambitions to see the city as part of the territory they administer.
Iraqi Kurds say the oil rich city was overwhelmingly Kurdish in the 1950s before Baghdad started a deliberate campaign of "Arabization", during which thousands of Arabs were resettled in the city.
The two parties, who share control of the three Kurdish provinces of Suleimaniyah, Dohuk and Erbil, are not pushing for independence but want a largely autonomous Kurdistan within a federal Iraq.