Sulaymaniyeh, Iraqi Kurdistan Prov, April 18, IRNA -- Keeping in mind the contrasting political directions adopted by the two major Kurdish political parties in Kirkuk, it is easy to predict the emergence of tension and chaotic conditions in there in near future. Both the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) have maintained their strong stances, insisting that Kirkuk should be included in their self-declared, autonomous regions. Thus, the oil-rich city in Iraq's Kurdistan Province has become a scene for an internal power struggle. There are two probable solutions to this puzzle presently. One is dividing the city into two parts, giving each to one party, and the second, a military clash between the PUK and the KDP, that can harbinger quite unfavorable aftermaths for the Iraqi Kurds and the whole Kurdish population in the Mideast region. Meanwhile, as the leaders of the PUK and the KDP are engaged in a power struggle aimed at securing their partisan influence over Kirkuk, the Turkmen and Arab tribes residing in the city are totally opposed to leaving the governance of Kirkuk up to the Kurds. Furthermore, Kirkuk has currently two governors and two governorate buildings, and is thus already a city divided into two different regions, while the PUK and KDP leaders have not kept in account in their calculations either the Turkmens, that are backed by Turkey, or the Arabs, that consider themselves as superiors traditionally. Both the PUK-backed Governor of Kirkuk Razgar Ali, who was once been overthrown by the US forces, and the KDP-backed Governor of the city Nezameddin Goli, consider themselves as the legitimate ruler of the whole city. But neither the Turkmens, nor the Arabs residing there, accept the legitimacy of either of them, and the American forces, that are currently the strongest decision makers in Iraq, have chosen to remain silent observers of this power struggle for the time being. The Kurds interpret the temporary silence of the Americans in Kirkuk developments as their policy aimed at proving that neither party is capable of restoring peace and stability in the region, and to throw both out eventually and appoint their own ruler there. Meanwhile, the other Kurdish parties, too, want their fair shares in ruling over Kirkuk, each declaring their objection toward the policies applied by the supporters of Talabani and the Barzani backed rulers there. The Secretary General of the Iraqi Kurdistan's Socialist Democratic Party Mohammad Haji Mahmoud told IRNA here in Sulaymaniyeh on Friday that the situation is far worse and more chaotic than imagined in Kirkuk. He added, "Both the PUK and the KDP are struggling to secure a greater share of the political power and the city's control and this has practically pushed Kirkuk towards quite chaotic conditions." He said, "the severeness of crisis and the level of differences of opinions in Kirkuk is so high that if the US forces were absent the occurrence of armed clashes between the PUK and the KDP forces over securing full control of Kirkuk was to be taken for granted." Haji Mahmoud further elaborated, "the leaders of these two parties have gone so far in their rivalries with each other that the probability of US military intervention and getting kicked out of all Kurds from Kirkuk is expected any moment." The members of political bureaus of the PUK and the KDP gathered in Salaheddin on Thursday night to try to solve their differences over the rulership issue in Kirkuk. The major achievement of that gathering, according to the Kurdish masse media, was an agreement over shared rulership of the PUK and the KDP in Kirkuk, but no further details of the Salaheddin talks has been revealed yet. The second largest oil field in the Middle East, Kirkuk, has a mixed one million population of Kurds, Turkmens, and Arabs, each claiming to be the majority there, and legitimate for ruling over the city. Due to the severeness of ethnic problems and serious differences of opinion, plus the economic importance of Kirkuk, it was initially decided to leave the governance of Kirkuk up to the Americans, until the central Iraqi government would take lead of the Affairs in Baghdad. Same sensitivities led to the PUK's decision to leave Kirkuk following the fall of the city, but the insistence of the rival KDP party, that had for many years propagated the idea of "Kirkuk, the heart of Kurdistan," intrigued the PUK, too, to appoint its own governor in the city and to return its forces back to Kirkuk. NA/AR End