BAGHDAD : Kurds Mull a Deal

Kurdish leaders this week will be weighing a tentative autonomy agreement with the Iraqi government reached by influential guerrilla chief Masoud Barzani.

Although it would leave the northern region known as Kurdistan as part of Iraq, the agreement reportedly calls for an autonomous Kurdish parliament to be elected in three months and nationwide elections within a year. It would also mean a general amnesty for all Kurdish political prisoners, reparations for devastation of villages in the north and a lion’s share for the Kurds of revenue from oil production in the rich Kirkuk area.

Barzani said the deal could be signed this week, but a rival Kurdish leader stressed that it is “only a draft.”