Iraq forces seize Kurdish territory in outskirts of Kirkuk
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 seized Kirkuk airport and had taken control of Northern Iraq’s oil company from the security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region, known as Peshmerga.
The military action was the most decisive step Baghdad has taken yet to rein in the independence aspirations of the Kurds, who have governed themselves as an autonomous part of Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 and voted on September 25 to secede.
“We call on the Peshmerga forces to serve under the federal authority as part of the Iraqi armed forces,” Prime Minister Haidar Abadi said in a statement which was read out on TV. He ordered security forces “to impose security in Kirkuk in cooperation with the population of the city and the Peshmerga,” the statement said.
State TV said Iraqi forces had also entered Tuz Khurmato, a flashpoint town where there had been clashes between Kurds and mainly Shi’ite Muslims 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.
US forces which have worked closely with both the federal forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga to fight against Islamic State (IS) called on both sides to avoid escalation.
The US-led international task force in Iraq was “closely monitoring [the situation] near Kirkuk; urge all sides to avoid escalatory actions. Finish the fight vs. #ISIS, biggest threat to all,” a spokesperson tweeted.
Bayan Sami Rahman, the Kurdish regional government’s representative in the US, tweeted a plea for Washington to “use [its] leadership role to prevent war.”
The action in Iraq helped spur a jump in world oil prices on Monday.
Baghdad considers last month’s Kurdish independence referendum illegal, especially as it was held not just in the autonomous region itself but in territory in northern Iraq, including Kirkuk, which the Kurdish Peshmerga occupied after driving out IS fighters.