Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Ramadan 17, 1445 H
broken clouds
weather
OMAN
23°C / 23°C
EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Iraqi forces take full control of Kirkuk governorate building

1136338
1136338
minus
plus

NO RESISTANCE: Baghdad described the advance by its troops as largely unopposed -


BAGHDAD: Iraq’s central government forces launched an advance early on Monday into territory held by Kurds, seizing a swathe of countryside surrounding the oil city of Kirkuk in a bold military response to a Kurdish vote last month on independence.


The government said its troops had captured Kirkuk airport, advanced to the city’s gates and taken control of northern Iraq’s oil company from the security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region, known as Peshmerga.


Baghdad described the advance as largely unopposed, and called on the Peshmerga to cooperate in keeping the peace. But the Peshmerga said Baghdad would be made to pay “a heavy price” for triggering “war on the Kurdistan people”.


Washington called for calm on both sides, seeking to avert an all-out conflict between Baghdad and the Kurds that would open a whole new front in Iraq’s 14-year civil war and potentially draw in regional powers such as Turkey and Iran.


A resident inside Kirkuk said members of the ethnic Turkmen community in the city of 1 million people were celebrating, driving in convoys with Iraqi flags and firing shots in the air. Residents feared this could lead to clashes with Kurds.


The overnight advance was the most decisive step Baghdad has taken yet to crush the independence bid of the Kurds, who have governed an autonomous part of Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and voted on September 25 to secede.


Kirkuk, one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse cities in Iraq, is located just outside the autonomous Kurdish zone. Kurds consider it the heart of their homeland and say it was cleansed of Kurds and settled with Arabs under Saddam to secure control of the oil that was the source of Iraq’s wealth. Prime Minister Haidar Abadi ordered security forces “to impose security in Kirkuk in cooperation with the population of the city and the Peshmerga”.


“We call on the Peshmerga forces to serve under the federal authority as part of the Iraqi armed forces,” he said in a statement read out on state television. State TV said Iraqi forces had also entered Tuz Khurmato, a flashpoint town where there had been clashes between Kurds and others of Turkmen ethnicity.


The Kurdish regional government did not initially confirm the Iraqi advances, but Rudaw, a major Kurdish TV station, reported that Peshmerga had left positions south of Kirkuk.


The “government of Abadi bears the main responsibility for triggering war on the Kurdistan people, and will be made to pay a heavy price”, the Peshmerga command said in a statement, cited by Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani’s assistant Hemin Hawrami.


Washington works closely with both the federal forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga to fight against IS.


“We call on all parties to immediately cease military action and restore calm while we continue to work with officials from the central and regional governments to reduce tensions and avoid futher clashes,” the US embassy said. — AFP


SHARE ARTICLE
arrow up
home icon