IRAQ - The Makhmour Controversy.

The town of Makhmour lies amid the dust devils, wheat-fields and oil pipelines of the northern Iraqi plains, just east of the Green Line which divides the autonomous KRG area from the rest of Iraq. For decades, this predominantly Kurdish town surrounded by what are now mostly Arab villages has been on the front line of ethnic tensions in northern Iraq. The tensions have left their mark in the form of sandbagged emplacements on the turn-off from the town's main highway and shrapnel scars on buildings caused by a car bomb in May, which killed 50 people.

By end-2007, the town is scheduled to vote in the referendum on whether to join the KRG region - a referendum some Iraqis say may lead to a new era of security and prosperity for the north. But others say this could cause simmering tensions to boil over.

On July 31 the committee in charge of implementing Article 140 will finalises the lists of eligible voters. Officials overseeing the process say that, after the July 31 "census", they will organise a referendum in which the "disputed territories" of northern Iraq vote, district by district, on whether to join the KRG area. The referendum is better known outside Iraq for its association with Kirkuk, which is home to Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Turkmens, Assyrian Christians and Shi'ite Arabs.

Kirkuk is one of the disputed territories affected by Article 140 which form an arc running 450 km from Sinjar in the north-west corner of the country to the province of Diyala in the east. The fields around Kirkuk alone represent almost 10% of Iraq's proven oil reserves - and Saddam's Sunni/Ba'thist dictatorship tried to cement Baghdad's control over it by making sure its Arab population was in the majority.

In towns such as Kirkuk, Saddam altered the demographic balance by expelling Kurds and Turkmens and bringing in Shi'ite Arab settlers from the south. In Makhmour, it took an administrative approach. According to KRG officials, the town was detached from the majority-Kurdish Erbil governorate in 1996 and reassigned to predominantly Arab Ninewah.

The FT on July 18 quoted Muhammad Amin Roj of the KDP as saying: "This region [Makhmour] is Kurdistan". Even the Arab villages, he says, have Kurdish names such as Kherabaddan (Round Stone), or Karamerdi (Dead Donkey). He says joining the KRG area would mean prosperity for the inhabitants of Makhmour, which he claims has been neglected by the province of Ninewah.

Some non-Kurds may welcome a chance to join the relative security of the north. A mixed group of Arab, Kurdish and Turkmen shopkeepers in the town of Purdieh agree the sooner the KRG's rule extends to their city, the better. But the most vocal Arab and Turkmen parties oppose it, and some outside observers believe many of the region's inhabitants will strongly resist integration into Kurdistan. But ethnic tensions are running high, not least because of the recent car and truck bombs - on July 16, over 85 were killed and more than 185 were wounded in a Neo-Salafi suicide attack in Kirkuk.

Makhmour officials say the bomb in May turned out to have been assembled in a nearby Arab village. The FT asked a Sunni Arab in Makhmour's market if he wanted to be part of Kurdistan. He replied: "How would I know? I've never been to Kurdistan. If I tried to drive to Erbil [Kurdistan's capital, 60 km north-east] they'd see 'Arab' on my identification and never let me in". After the May bomb, Arab civil servants were attacked for being of the same ethnicity as the Neo-Salafi terrorists.

Some outsiders have urged the KRG and Baghdad governments to hold off on implementing Article 140. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) suggests the process lacks legitimacy among Arabs, Turkmens and others. But Kurdish officials say they have had little luck trying to negotiate any practical compromises with their main Sunni or Turkmen opponents. The FT quoted Muhammad Ihsan, a Kurdish member of the multi-ethnic commission overseeing Article 140, as saying: "We are talking about a constitution. It is not a menu for a restaurant. The constitution is something fixed and you have to implement it".