“The Kurds entered the election commission office and asked to vote because they said they were people displaced by Saddam Hussein,” an official from the electoral commission told AFP.

The issue was resolved when those holding identification from Khanaqin were allowed to vote in the provincial elections that were held on Saturday, the official added.

During Saddam’s reign tens of thousands of Kurds were forced to relocate to the Kurd regions in northern Iraq, as part of the dictator’s Arabisation plans.

Many of those 16,000 residents have returned in the wake of the 2003 US-invasion which deposed Saddam, renewing tensions and sparking rival territorial claims between Kurds and Arab Shiites.

The town of Khanaqin in northeast Diyala province is near the border with Iran and holds sizeable oil reserves.

The local Kurdish political leadership has called for Khanaqin to join the adjoining autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.