Ethnic Divide in Iraqi City a Test for Nation

Iraqi leaders and the United Nations are struggling to reach at least a temporary solution to the question of who should control the city. At a time when the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Kurdish leaders are increasingly at odds over the disposition of oil revenue and other issues, Kurdish parties have deployed forces in the city and the surrounding area in what they say is an attempt to protect Kurdish civilians from attack.

Even the name of Salahadin's neighborhood is contested. Arab and Turkmen residents call it Hay al-Wasiti, as it was known before the 2003 U.S-led invasion of Iraq. The Kurds have renamed it Nowruz, after the Kurdish New Year.

Politics infuses virtually every discussion in this neighborhood -- a sprawling jumble of houses, shops and mosques connected by dusty, unpaved roads in the southern part of Kirkuk. About 120 Kurdish families are clustered inside sand berms, blast walls and checkpoints. Arab and Turkmen houses surround them.

For decades, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens mingled freely, intermarried and ran businesses together. Today, the communities rarely mix.