Topic: Iraq's Kurdish rivals renew coalition for election

ARBIL, Iraq, Oct 28 (Reuters) - Iraq's two main Kurdish parties, the
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
will contest elections in December on a single list, a Kurdish official said
on Friday.
"The KDP and PUK have decided to renew their agreement to continue
the Kurdish Alliance for the next election," the speaker of the Kurdish
regional parliament in Arbil, Adnan al-Mufti, told Reuters.
Sources in the Electoral Commission said the Kurdish alliance had
registered its list on Friday.
Iraq's Kurds acquired de facto autonomy for their mountainous
northern region from Saddam Hussein's rule in Baghdad thanks to U.S. air
cover following the 1991 Gulf War.
But rivalry between the KDP and PUK flared into war in the mid-1990s
until a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in 1997.
Kurdish leaders, notably Iraqi President Jalal Talabani of the PUK
and KDP leader Masoud Barzani have agreed not to push for a complete
independence in return for U.S. assurances of a fair deal from majority
Arabs.
The Kurdish allies joined the dominant Shi'ite-led alliance in a
coalition government following an election to an interim parliament in
January.