Kurds, Warning of Hostilities in Iraq, Appeal for a U.S. Envoy

The Iraqi Kurdish government has asked the U.S. to appoint a special envoy to mediate a deepening and potentially dangerous dispute between the central government in Baghdad and the semiautonomous Kurdish region, a top Kurdish official said Monday.

Falah Mustafa Bakir, the head of foreign relations for Iraqi Kurdistan, told The Wall Street Journal that he has approached U.S. officials with a request for the Americans to do more to address friction between Baghdad and the Kurdish government in Erbil.