ERBIL, Jan. 25 (AKnews) - The Iraqi government will soon form a committee to either restore confiscated Kurdish and Turkmen lands in Kirkuk or compensate them.

Speaking to AKnews, Kheyrullah Hassan, Iraqi Trade Minister (a Kurd) told AKnews that the minister will work to annul nine orders by Saddam Hussein's deposed regime under which some 400,000 acres of land owned by the Kurds and Turkmen of Kirkuk Province were allocated to the Ministries of Oil and Defense, and Arab settlers in the late 1970s.

Yesterday the Council of Ministers voted to annul these orders.

Hassan said the Council of Ministers will design a bill and send it the Council of Representatives for approval so that the Ministries of Oil and Defense who still own the land can indicate how many acres they can restore. For the people whose lands cannot be restored, the government will compensate them.