Iraq's President Talabani was the target of Kirkuk attack - report

A suicide bomber killed at least 55 people and wounded 110 on Thursday, in an explosion inside a popular crowded restaurant in northern Iraq's ethnically mixed energy-rich province city of Kirkuk.

The attack took place a couple of hours before the Arab leaders were to meet with Talabani.

Arab tribal leaders were having lunch with members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the party of Talabani and were to later to attend a meeting with Talabani to discuss ways to defuse tensions among Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens in the Kirkuk area, earlier media reports also suggested citing Kurdish officials.

The complex issues over who will control the energy-rich province, which is home to Arabs, Turkmen and Kurds, has repeatedly dogged the passage of the provincial elections bill in Iraq.

Turkey sees the final status of Kirkuk as a major concern, and thinks a hurried referendum, which already had been postponed, might have triggered ethnic clashes in the city.