Iraq military steps up bid to isolate region

Efforts follow Kurds’ independence vote

IRBIL, Iraq — Iraq’s military prepared Saturday to take control of the international borders of the northern Kurdish region.

The move is part of the central government’s stepped-up efforts to isolate the Kurds after their vote on independence last week.

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group, said in a speech Saturday night that the referendum held on Monday does not threaten Iraq alone but also Turkey, Syria and Iran, which all have large Kurdish minorities.

Nasrallah said the divisions would also reach other countries in the region including Saudi Arabia, a country that he harshly criticized in his speech.

“The responsibility of the Kurds, Iraqi people and concerned countries … is to stand against the beginning of divisions,” Nasrallah said.

On Friday evening, Iraq instituted a flight ban that halted all international flights from servicing the territory’s airports.

Iraqi troops now in Turkey and Iran are expected to start enforcing control over the border crossings in and out of the Kurdish region, but are not expected to move into Kurdish territory.

Abdul-Wahab Barzani, director of intelligence at the crossing point from the Kurdish region into Turkey, said Iraqi troops are in position on the Turkish side of the border.

“So far they have not contacted us,” he said. He said he heard they plan to set up a customs point some 16 yards away on the Turkish side and traffic is expected to continue to be allowed to pass the crossing normally.

The escalation feeds worries in the United States, a close ally of both the Kurds and Baghdad, that the referendum vote could lead to violence, setting off an unpredictable chain of events.

The nonbinding referendum, in which the Kurds voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence from Iraq, will not immediately result in an independent state.

But the vote has set off alarm bells in Baghdad, where the government has said it is determined to prevent a break-up of the country, and in Iraq’s neighbors, Iran and Turkey, which fear the vote will fuel similar ambitions among their own significant Kurdish populations.

The detente between Iraq and the Kurds has only been a relatively recent development, and has never been strong, even though they are on the same side of the fight against the Islamic State. In the 1970s, Iraqi leaders sent Kurds to concentration camps and razed their villages. In the 1980s, when they sided with Iran in its war with Iraq, President Saddam Hussein killed more than 100,000 of them and attacked the city of Halabja with poison gas.

A no-fly zone, imposed by the United States after the 1991 Persian Gulf War and a failed Kurdish uprising, protected the Kurds for years in northern Iraq. And after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Kurds and the Iraqi government essentially had to get along, under pressure from U.S. officials. But after the Kurdish referendum vote, Iraq has threatened to send troops to retake the Kirkuk oil fields and disputed areas.

“The responsibility of the Kurds, Iraqi people and concerned countries … is to stand against the beginning of divisions.” — Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group

AP/Pool A Turkish army tank moves Friday in Silopi near the Habur border gate with Iraq, southeastern Turkey. Tanks with Turkish and Iraqi soldiers holding the Turkish and Iraqi flags rolled on a field as the two countries’ militaries conducted joint exercises...