UN submits plan for disputed Kirkuk

The United Nations has given Iraq's government a report which focuses on ways to bring an end to decades of dispute over the oil-rich province of Kirkuk.Steffan de Mistura, head of the UN mission in Iraq, presented the document to Jalal Talabani, Iraq's president, Nuri al-Maliki, the prime minister, and Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region.The report, which has not been made public, examines four possible methods of overcoming differences over the control of Kirkuk, which is thought to sit on about four per cent of the world's oil reserves.Arabs and minority Turkmen and Kurds living in Kirkuk have been distrustful of each other over years of violence, political manoeuvring and economic hardship.