Iraqi forces seize areas around Kirkuk

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces on Monday gained more ground in the multiethnic province of Kirkuk with the aim of taking control of the disputed areas that were seized by Kurdish fighters in 2014, the Iraqi military said.

The troops captured several areas in south and west of the city of Kirkuk, including a gas installation, an oil refinery, a power station and the village of Yaiyji, in addition to an industrial area and two crossing points, the Joint Operations Command said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had ordered government forces to enter the province in northern Iraq to regain control of the areas that are claimed by Baghdad and the Kurdish semi-autonomous region.

Iraq’s Counter-Terrorism Service, Federal Police forces and the 9th Armored Division were deployed, a statement by Abadi’s office said.

The troops are pushing to surround the city of Kirkuk to regain control of some military facilities, including the huge al-Hurriyah air base and the oil fields, the statement said.

It said the deployment process went smoothly in the first hours, but local media reports said that sporadic clashes erupted before dawn between the Iraqi forces and the Kurdish forces, known as Peshmerga, in the industrial area, a few kilometers outside the southern edge of Kirkuk.

“We call on the Peshmerga forces to serve under the federal authority as part of the Iraqi armed forces,” Abadi said in a statement which was read out on television. He ordered security forces “to impose security in Kirkuk in cooperation with the population of the city and the Peshmerga”.

Disagreements between

Haider al-Abadi, Iraqi PM

Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government have been running high for years. The ethnic Kurds consider the northern Kirkuk province and parts of Nineveh, Diyala and Salahudin provinces as disputed areas and want them to be incorporated into their region, a move fiercely opposed by the Arab and Turkmen groups and the central government in Baghdad.

The areas are mostly under the control of the Peshmerga, but in small areas like TuzKhurmato there is a mixed presence of federal forces and the Kurdish fighters.

Tensions are escalating between Baghdad and the region of Kurdistan after the Kurds held a controversial independence referendum on the independence of the region and the disputed areas.

The Kurdish secession bid was strongly opposed not only by the Iraqi central government, but also by other countries as it would threaten the integrity of Iraq and undermine the fight against Islamic State militants.

Iraq’s neighboring countries, especially Turkey, Iran and Syria, fear that the Iraqi Kurds’ pursuit of independence threatens their territorial integrity, as a large Kurdish population lives in those countries.

We call on the Peshmerga forces to serves under the federal authority.”