Iraq will set up a commission to resolve disputes between Arabs and thousands of Kurds displaced from their homes under Saddam Hussein , Kurdish and U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Kurdish leaders have reassured Jay Garner, the retired general overseeing Iraq's reconstruction who is visiting the Kurdish-held north, they would not take reprisals against Arabs following the fall of Saddam's regime. Garner held talks on Tuesday with rival Kurdish leaders Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), before heading to the northern city of Arbil on Wednesday.

Some Arab families in northern Iraq say they have been ordered out of their homes as armed Kurds lay claim to property and seek revenge for atrocities under Saddam.

"There will be a committee later representing all sides under the guidance of the United States to arrange how people must go back home in a regular way, not in chaos," Talabani said on Wednesday at an airport in Sulaimaniya.

He said this had been agreed with U.S. presidential envoy Zalmay Khalilzad in Ankara a month ago.

"We had made a commitment. Yesterday we assured, we repeated it," Talabani said. Many Kurds demand the right to return to northern towns and cities from which they were expelled under Saddam's Arabization program.

MODEL FOR IRAQ

Garner flew by helicopter from PUK-controlled Sulaimaniya, 205 miles northeast of Baghdad, to KDP-held Arbil on Wednesday morning and was greeted there by Barzani, other KDP officials, and children in traditional dress.

"I suppose we can make all Iraq like Kurdistan," Barzani told Garner through an interpreter.

Garner said: "We'll do this together."

A U.S. official accompanying Garner said the commission on ethnic disputes would be similar to the system used to handle the aftermath of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

It would be run by Iraqis, possibly alongside an independent body to provide checks and balances and prevent it from becoming a political tool, he said.

"What we've asked and tried to get a commitment for, and Talibani said yesterday, was to ask people to pursue things legally and not go back and seize their property by force," he said.

There had been several incidents involving Kurdish reprisals against Arabs in the region in the first few days after Saddam's regime was toppled, but the situation has calmed down since U.S. troops began 24-hour patrols, he said. And he added that he was encouraged that tens of thousands of Kurds living in camps near Kirkuk had not gone to the city to reclaim property.

"They didn't, and we can take a little credit that we got a strong message out that we respect their concerns and it will be handled through some sort of legal process," he said.

"This is a long term process this isn't something we can fix overnight. In Bosnia it took years."


PHOTO CAPTION

Kurd Khader Rashid Rahim, center, stands in front of the home he took during the liberation of Kirkuk from Arab Qaseem Muhamad Bamed, left, in Kirkuk, Iraq Wednesday April 16, 2003. Despite Kurdish assurances that the return of displaced Kurds will be orderly and legal some are taking the law into their own hands. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)