Interior Ministry sacks police chief of northern disputed town

KIRKUK, Sept.19 (Iraqi News) Iraq’s Interior ministry on Friday sacked the police chief of the northern town of Tuz Khurmato,a local official said. “Iraqi Interior Ministry ordered sacking Brigadier Abbas Mohamed, the police chief for Tuz Khurmato town,”Tuz Khurmato mayor Mohamed Rasheed told IraqiNews.com-Voices of Iraq(Iraqi News). Tuz Khurmato, lying on the road between Kirkuk and Tikrit is a mixed town and deemed as one of the disputed town between the central Iraqi government and regional Kurdistan authorities. “The ministry appointed an Arab ethnicty officer in his place,”the mayor noted. He added “the reason for the axing order were unknown but we were satified with his performance”. Tuz Khurmato town is just one of a number of areas where longstanding Kurdish claims have drawn opposition from their non-Kurdish neighbours. Concerns among Arabs and Turkmen about Kurdish claims to the northern oil province of Kirkuk was the main factor behind the Iraqi parliament’s failure to adopt a provincial election law in time for polls to go ahead as planned in October. AM(S) 1