Turks fear Kurds will set up State

US SOLDIERS began securing oilfields and the airport in the key northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday as lawlessness and tensions between ethnic groups appeared to be on the rise, and Turkey voiced its concerns about a Kurdish nation on its borders.

Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in the city since Thursday, when Iraqi forces fled, have agreed to leave, but a senior Kurdish official said this would only happen when US troops could ensure stability a task that could take days.

"Peshmerga from outside the city will go out as soon as there are sufficient numbers of US military personnel," said Barham Saleh, prime minister of one of two main factions controlling the Kurd-majority enclave in northern Iraq. More and more American troops are coming in."

But, by yesterday evening, they were only in evidence in strength at an oilfield outside the city and at the airport. About 20 US troops secured Kirkuk's huge oilfields and a further 50-60 picked their way carefully across the grounds of a military airbase.

But their presence on the streets of the city was minimal, and thousands of soldiers may be needed to keep the peace in the ethnically-diverse city of 700,000.

Turkey expressed alarm at the chaotic entry of hundreds of Peshmerga into Kirkuk, fearing Iraqi Kurds could use the city's wealth to finance an independent State and stimulate separatist demands among its own Kurdish minority.

Many people in the city are clearly nervous at having Kurds providing security. Arabs in particular are fearful of reprisals from those Kurds forced to flee the city by Saddam's often brutal policy of Arabisation.

Dilman Jamal, a young doctor at the hospital, said it was unstaffed when he arrived from the nearby city of Arbil.

"All the doctors were Arabs and they have all fled, fearing the Kurds will mistreat them," he said.