Distrust of Iraq's Shiite-led government remains widespread among Sunnis, and many of the minority community's leaders have begun voicing calls for their own separate territory within Iraq, much like Kurdistan in the north.

"Let the Kurds take the north, the Shiites take the south, let them select who represents them -- this is not our business," said Ahmed Dhiyab al-Juburi, imam of the Abdul Rahman mosque in Muqdadiyah, a town in confessionally-mixed but majority Sunni Arab province of Diyala.

"The Kurds benefit from the budget and the Shiites occupy the central government -- we do not get anything from the government but raids and arrests," the prayer leader moaned.

Sunni Arabs, who dominated all the regimes of Iraq from its modern creation in 1920 until Saddam Hussein's overthrow in 2003, largely boycotted Iraq's first post-invasion parliamentary election in 2005.

In the following two years, a violent insurgency against government forces and US troops left tens of thousands dead across Iraq.

It was only quelled when tens of thousands of extra American soldiers were sent in to Iraq, and Washington co-opted Sunni tribes which had sided with Al-Qaeda.

On March 7, voters in Sunni-majority provinces in north and west Iraq such as Diyala, Salaheddin, Nineveh and Anbar helped propel secular Shiite ex-premier Iyad Allawi's bloc to win the biggest number of seats in parliament.

But eight months of stalemate led to the formation of coalitions that trumped Iraqiya and finally resulted in the incumbent Nuri al-Maliki staying on as prime minister after a power-sharing deal was forged last month.

"We voted for (Allawi's) Iraqiya to face down the marginalisation campaign against Sunni Arabs," said Talal Abdul Karim Hussein al-Matar, chief of the Albo Aswad tribe in Salaheddin.

"But if the incoming government continues with this, we want to use the provinces law to get more powers."

He was referring to a constitutional article, and subsequent legislation passed in 2006, that give Iraq's provinces the right to band together into sub-national regions, giving them an increased share of the national budget.

It would also allow greater autonomy over internal affairs.

The latest calls are a major about-turn for Sunni leaders, who rejected Iraq's constitution when it was put to a nationwide referendum, largely over the regions article, fearing it would lead to the eventual break-up of Iraq.

"We in Iraqiya reject the idea (of forming a Sunni region), but it is being discussed -- the elites are talking about it," acknowledged Abdul Karim al-Samarrai, an Iraqiya MP from Salaheddin's provincial capital of Samarra.

"It is important to think carefully about this issue ... Some in Salaheddin are thinking of forming a region, but this is risky, it may lead to the division of Iraq.

"But if political reforms are not implemented, people will think more about forming regions and, at some point, we will not not be able to refuse them."

Article 119 of Iraq's constitution stipulates that, in addition to the Kurdistan regional government, "one or more governorates shall have the right to organise into a region based on a request to be voted on in a referendum."

All that is required is that the request be approved, either by one out of 10 citizens in each of the provinces which aim to join to form a region, or a third of those provinces' provincial council members.

Opinion on the idea remains divided, however, with a crucial wedge between the so-called "Sunni triangle" of Anbar, Diyala and Salaheddin, and Nineveh and Kirkuk to the north.

Concerns in Kirkuk and Nineveh remain with regards to a disputed tract of land centred around Kirkuk that divides the Kurdish region from the rest of Iraq, with both sides claiming it as their own.

In those two provinces, the Arab-Kurd divide appears to take priority over disputes with the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, while the opposite is true of the "Sunni triangle" provinces.

"Forming a Sunni Arab region would destroy us," said Rakan Saeed al-Juburi, Kirkuk deputy governor and a Sunni Arab himself. "That project would mean the end of the Kirkuk issue, and this is unacceptable."

And even if the proposal were put to a referendum, there is no guarantee it would pass -- a similar attempt to turn Basra province into a region was rejected in a landslide vote two years ago.

But according to one analyst, Iraq's problems could be fixed simply by creating regions along ethno-sectarian lines.

"Iraq's problem can be settled just by establishing areas according to national and religious identities," said Taha Mustafa Adel, a professor at Diyala University.

"We are like sons whose father died, and now we are fighting over his wealth. The fighting among the brothers can only be stopped if the wealth is distributed among them fairly."

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