Barzani plea for UN to secure Kurdish peace: The veteran guerrilla fighter tells Hugh Pope in Salahuddin of his shame as his dreams of unity are shattered by fratricidal strife

HIS DREAM of a united Kurdish people in tatters after months of fighting in northern Iraq, the veteran Kurdish leader, Massoud Barzani, yesterday said his bitter sense of failure had even led him to consider calling for a United Nations force to keep the peace.

Even though fighting with his rival, Jalal Talabani, stopped on Friday, troops have pulled back and a lasting ceasefire has taken hold, Mr Barzani told reporters in his mountain resort headquarters of Salahuddin that the basic problem was a lack of trust between the two main Kurdish guerrilla factions after 'fighting, looting, ransacking and killing of prisoners'.

Talks with Mr Talabani on normalisation would continue, he said, but some new form of locaI government was needed to reunite the 3.5 million Kurds of northern Iraq before elections due next May. 'It's not easy . . . there is no united Kurdish army left,' he said. 'It's just a personal opinion, but maybe we should have a UN protectorate with peace-keepers.'

About 200 UN guards already keep watch against attempts by Iraq's President Saddam Hussein to disrupt relief efforts, but the United Nations would be unlikely to separate in-fighting between the Kurds. In fact, the Kurds have already been brought back from the brink of civil war through mediation by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an umbrella organisation of Iraqi opposition groups led by Ahmed Chalabi, a charismatic Shia banker and mathematician.

'The INC's role is very great, but alone they cannot do much,' said Mr Barzani, a short, shy figure wearing a red-checked turban and baggy-trousered Kurdish uniform. Speaking softly and even laughing at times, he said he had said little during the crisis because of his deep embarrassment, shame and wish to stop the fratricide.

Mr Barzani leads the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq, founded by his legendary father in the 1940s and one of the grand institutions of the Kurdish national cause. But he said the Kurdish in-fighting was the worst experience of his 32 years as a peshmerga guerrilla fighter.

'We resisted the anfal (Iraqi massacres), the chemical bombings, we had thousands of martyrs and we were successful. We had a sacred, holy experiment,' he said. Not only did the Kurds begin to develop democratic institutions under Western protection after the end of the Gulf war in 1991 but the guerrilla groups enjoyed the fruits of victory: fine spreads of buildings, the many four-wheel-drive battle wagons and even Mr Barzani's grey BMW limousine.

'We have international sympathy, the UN Security Council had a resolution to protect us,' he said. 'These happenings show failure. We have to admit it like a student failing an exam. It was the worst thing in my whole life.'

The fighting was triggered by a land dispute on 1 May but quickly spread. Mr Barzani said he believed Mr Talabani's group, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, had been preparing to attack anyway because it rejected his call for early elections. Such a poll aimed to resolve difficulties in Kurdistan's autonomous government caused by a 50:50 power-sharing arrangement after the first free elections in 1992.

Mr Barzani appealed for Western friends of the Kurds not to be dismayed by the fighting and allegations of atrocities. He invited Amnesty International to send a mission to apportion blame. 'The Kurdish people are not to be faulted just because of the irresponsibility of some,' he said.

Anger edged into his voice, however, at the fact that Iraqi Kurdistan is for the time being split into several areas of rival guerrilla army influence, recalling the centuries of rival emirates and selfish in-fighting that have always plagued the Kurdish tribes.

'We do not want our history to be taken back 400 years . . . Kurdistan belongs to everybody,' Mr Barzani said.