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ARBIL (AFP) - US forces handed over responsibility for security in Iraq's three northern provinces to the Kurdish regional government Wednesday, in a move that may bolster its separatist ambitions.

While officials said the autonomous region will work closely with the national government in Baghdad, the symbolism of the moment was not lost on the former guerrilla fighters who attended the hand-over ceremony.

"It's a sort of independence," Colonel Shadman Ali of the peshmerga, the Kurdish security force, said.
"We are very glad and proud and have been waiting for this day for so long. It gives us a great source of hope."

Sulaimaniyah, Arbil and Dohuk provinces are ruled by the Kurdish Regional Government, which has its own executive and ministries and has been spared much of the unrest wracking the rest of Iraq.