Resting among the fertile land in the foothills of the Zagros mountains and atop vast oil riches, the ancient city of Kirkuk is the would-be jewel in the incomplete crown of Iraq's Kurds.
The problem is, at a time when all of Iraq's ethnic and religious groups are vying for power and a share of the country's natural resources following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, they are not the only ones who covet it.
And as a July 1 deadline for US authorities to hand sovereignty back to an Iraqi government draws nearer, the struggle for influence is growing ever more intense and deadly.
Over the centuries, Kurds, Turkmen, Arabs, Christians and Jews have all to one degree or another held ground in the city, a bustling place built around a crumbling citadel with dusty streets crammed with cars, fruit stalls and donkey carts.
While the others may lay claim, however, it is the Kurds and the Turkmen who can argue with most authority that Kirkuk's roots are theirs, and who are now struggling for supremacy in a city their forefathers founded more than 3,000 years ago.
Better organised and wealthier, it is the Kurds - who refer to Kirkuk as their Jerusalem and want it as the capital of a federal Kurdish state - who hold the upper hand.
"This is where we belong, this is our land," said Hassib Qadir, 24, whose family was forced from the city by Saddam's government more than a decade ago and is now trying to return with his father, brothers, wife and three children.
"I am not an enemy of the Turkmen or the Arabs, but in my heart I believe that Kirkuk is just for the Kurds."
Under Saddam, Kurds and Turkish-speaking Turkmen were driven from Kirkuk and thousands of outlying villages to make way for Arabs as part of a process called "Arabization" that sought to alter permanently the region's ethnic make-up.
Crudely put, Saddam hoped to create a situation where only Arabs had claim to Kirkuk and its estimated 10 billion barrels of proven oil reserves - around 40 percent of Iraq's total.
Human rights groups estimate that up to 150,000 Kurds and Turkmen were expelled from the area between 1991 and 2002, when the process was at its peak, as Saddam cracked down on his enemies following an uprising after the first Gulf war.
But "Arabization" actually began in the late 1950s and 60s, long before Saddam, when Iraq's rulers, recognising that Kurds and Turkmen occupied vastly rich turf, decided to expel them.
In total, Kurdish and Turkmen groups believe as many as 350,000 people were driven away and may now seek to return to their ancestral homes, creating not only huge humanitarian problems but stirring ethnic rivalries.
Those rivalries are likely to be all the more staunch following suicide bomb attacks on the offices of two Kurdish parties in the city of Arbil, a Kurdish stronghold in the far north of Iraq in early February, killing at least 56 people.
It is not known who was responsible, but the attacks are likely to unite competing Kurdish factions and make them all the more determined to get the trophy they desire.
Only days after Saddam's government was overthrown last April, Kurdish families began leaving their exile in the far north of Iraq and moving south towards Kirkuk, spurred on in part by their wealthy and astute political leaders.
The goal was to reassume influence in and around the city, which lies south of the northern no-fly zone enforced by the United States and Britain after the first Gulf war, meaning that during 12 years of sanctions, Saddam still held sway.
Turkmen, less well-off and well-prepared than their Kurdish rivals, moved more slowly, but in recent months have also begun returning in numbers. At the same time, many Arabs who were moved into the region have fled, fearing retribution.
Around the periphery of the city there are now tented encampments of Turkmen and Kurds desperate to return. They have been waiting for months, and some are losing patience, but most expect that they will soon find a home in Kirkuk or nearby.
"It hurts me to see my people living like this in the mud and dirt," said Ashraf Shaukat, 65, the nominal chief of some 650 Kurdish families living in tents on a rocky patch of earth near a football stadium on Kirkuk's southern outskirts.
"But we are willing to wait, and soon we will have a home where we have always wanted a home, and life can begin again."
Shaukat and others are quick to emphasise that they have no problem with Arabs and no interest in driving them from the city or fighting with Turkmen for dominance, but recent history suggests not everyone is keeping such calm counsel.
In December, days of demonstrations by Arabs and Turkmen opposed to the increased Kurdish presence in Kirkuk led to the death of at least 10 protesters. In late January, a senior Turkmen official was assassinated in unexplained circumstances.
Both Turkmen and Arabs are alarmed by the fact that Kirkuk's police force is now majority Kurd, that many government buildings have Kurdish, not Iraqi, flags atop them and that plans are afoot to set up local Kurdish "ministries".
"They think this is all theirs, but in fact the Turkmen were here first, and we shall return to make it Turkmen again," said Saed Adil, 30, who returned from exile in the north four months ago and is now living in a tent outside Kirkuk.
Any conversation with Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk ends up being a numbers game, with each arguing that they have a majority, or at least a plurality, of the city's population.
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