Tensions rise in Iraq’s Kirkuk city

The Kurdish region plans to hold the September 25 vote, referendum could raise particular unrest in the oil city, where Kurds vie with Turkmen and Arabs for power

KIRKUK (IRAQ): Police deployed in the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk to prevent any outbreak of ethnic violence ahead of an independence referendum strongly opposed by the central Baghdad government and Western and regional powers.

The Kurdish region plans to hold the September 25 vote despite an Iraqi government warning it is “playing with fire” and U.S. declarations it could undermine the fight against IS militants.

The referendum could raise particular tension in Kirkuk, where Kurds vie with Turkmen and Arabs for power.

Turkey, which has moved a detachment of tanks and troops to its border with northern Iraq, said the breakup of Iraq or Syria where Kurds have gained territory and influence in the war against IS could stir global conflict.

Kurdish security and the city police erected checkpoints across Kirkuk after a Kurd was killed in a clash with the guards of a Turkmen political party office in the city.

Two other Kurds and a Turkmen security guard were wounded in the clash that broke out when a Kurdish convoy celebrating the referendum, carrying Kurdish flags, drove by the Turkmen party office, according to security sources. The Kurdish dead and wounded were among those celebrating, they said.

Turkey has long seen itself as the protector of Iraq’s Turkmen minority.

Turkey’s defence minister warned on Tuesday that the breakup of Iraq or Syria could have dire consequences.

“A change that will mean the violation of Iraq’s territorial integrity poses a major risk for Turkey,” Nurettin Canikli said in Ankara.

“The disruption of Syria and Iraq’s territorial integrity will ignite a bigger, global conflict with an unseen end.”

Turkey, with a large Kurdish population of its own in the south of the country, fears the referendum could embolden the outlawed PKK which has waged an insurgency in the southeast since the 1980s.

Canikli said Ankara could not allow the formation of an ethnic-based state in the south of the country.

“Nobody should have any doubt that we will take every step, make every decision to stop the growth of risk factors,” he said.

Tensions rose after the Kurdish-led provincial council in Erbil voted this month to include Kirkuk in the referendum despite the fact that the city lies outside the official boundaries of the autonomous Kurdistan region.

Kurdish peshmerga fighters prevented Kirkuk’s oilfields falling into IS hands when they seized the city and other disputed territories as the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of an IS advance in 2014.

In recent months, IS has been driven back across Iraq, but remains dug in close to Kirkuk.

Iraq announced on Tuesday the start of an attack to dislodge IS from the town of Ana as they push westward toward Al Qaim, the border post with Syria.

Iranian-backed Iraqi militias, highlighting the broader perils emanating from the vote, have threatened to remove peshmerga from Kirkuk should the Kurds persist in holding the vote.