UN launches report on Iraq's contested Kirkuk

The United Nations handed the Iraqi government a report on Wednesday it hopes will help end decades of deadlock over Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed region that sits on as much as 4 percent of the world’s oil supply. Staffan de Mistura, who heads the U.N. mission in Iraq, presented the report to Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani, the United Nations said in a statement.

The report, a year in the making, contains four options to overcome disputes over control of Kirkuk and recommendations on 14 other contested areas in northern Iraq. The options were not made public.

Reuters