Arabs, Turks threaten mayor election boycott

ARABS and Turks in Iraq’s main northern oil city threatened yesterday to boycott a vote for mayor as an American general approved six final members of a city council charged with healing ethnic feuding that threatens the region’s stability.

Bitter squabbling prevented the six from being sworn in a day earlier, and the intervention by Major General Ray Odierno, commander of the 4th Infantry Division, did little to calm ethnic passions that roiled the first meeting of the 30-person city council.

Arabs and ethnic Turks immediately threatened to boycott the expected vote for mayor, saying the post is certain to go to a Kurd.