US eyes UN peacekeepers for Iraq after 2011

BAGHDAD - The top American military commander in Iraq said Tuesday that UN peacekeepers may be needed to protect the disputed areas in the north of the country, where tensions between Kurds and Arabs have not eased by the time the U.S. troops out in 2011.
In an interview with The Associated Press, General Ray Odierno of the U.S. military said the UN peacekeeping force would be an option as Kurdish soldiers are not integrated into the Arab-dominated Iraqi army in the coming years. He said he hopes the UN troops will not be necessary.
But Odierno acknowledged that tensions between the two cultures - and the oil-rich land in northern Iraq that each side claims as its territory - are simmering for years without resolution. Iraqi Kurds want a number of areas of Nineveh, Diyala and Tamim provinces part of their autonomous region, a movement against the Arab-dominated central government should be.
"If (they) are not integrated, we might think of another mechanism," said Odierno. "I do not know what that is yet. Is it a UN force chapter 6? I do not know. But that is something that should be developed, and it will be, depending on how far we are in position to bring Process. "
Chapter 6 of the UN Charter refers to peacekeeping tasks, including research and brokerage disputes.
Odierno said that if Kurdish troops are well employed in the Iraqi army, then "we will let them do it. It is too early to tell. But that's a problem we have to look at and work through."
The prospect of the UN peacekeeping force raises questions about whether Iraq will be stable by the time that all U.S. troops needed to meet the end of 2011 verlaat under a security agreement between Washington and Baghdad.
It is generally agreed that Iraq's leaders the United States may ask to review this Agreement and at least some troops to leave behind after 2011 to the unequal nation military and police more time to train.
Odierno maintained that decision was up to the incoming Iraqi government, whose leadership is still being negotiated after no clear winner emerged from the parliamentary elections of March being. But he left the door open that some U.S. troops could remain.
"I'm not a big American presence can be seen here. I really do not," he said. "They would like technical support, but again, that's their decision, not ours."
The United Nations should adopt a resolution before peacekeeping troops to Iraq, and therefore would significantly change the political order. The current UN mission in Iraq is no support for peacekeepers.
A UN spokeswoman in Baghdad, Radhia Achouri, specific questions about possible peacekeeping forces to the Iraqi government and the UN Security Council in New York. She said the UN mission in Iraq "is not part of the discussions on such matters."
Concern that ethnic tensions could lead to war after Kurdish and Iraqi forces clashed in eastern Diyala province in 2008, Odierno this year ordered the U.S. military to establish security in the disputed areas are guarded by soldiers of all three forces .
The hope is that the Kurds and Arabs to work together against a common enemy - al-Qaida in Iraq insurgents who profit from the tension - instead of fighting each other.
The experiment for the most part peaceful, but clashes continue to break out between the Kurdish and Arab forces, including one on Monday in a fist fight resulted among soldiers fired near a market in Qara Tappah, a city of Diyala, about 75 miles northeast of Baghdad. Two Iraqi soldiers, a Kurdish officer and a civilian were injured in the collision.
Authorities with the collision of a misunderstanding between soldiers and Odierno described it as a spat between individuals - and not a widespread Arab-Kurd problem.
There is no guarantee of the checkpoints will continue once the American troops out in 2011. In an interview with AP last month, Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari, a Kurd, who is top commander of the Iraqi army, said the checkpoints will no longer be required after the Iraqi parliament governs the disputed areas.
If that can happen, anyone guess.
Odierno said he could not predict when the parliament may address the quagmire - or that could be resolved before the end of 2011.
"It is a difficult issue," he said. He said he hopes the negotiations for the selection of new leaders of Iraq "could help push forward a bit, but we'll see."