Iraq denies attack plan as tensions rise with Kurds

arbil — Iraq’s prime minister on Thursday denied an attack on the Kurds was imminent, in a bid to defuse tensions that had prompted Kurdish peshmerga fighters to temporarily seal off road links with the rest of the country.

“We are not going to use our army to fight our people or to make war on our Kurdish citizens or others,” Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi said.

“Our duty is to preserve the unity of our country, to implement the constitution, and to protect citizens and national forces,” he told a meeting of tribal leaders from the western province of Anbar.

The rise in tensions came two weeks after Kurdish voters overwhelmingly backed independence in a non-binding referendum that the central government condemned as illegal.

Iraqi Kurdish forces closed the two main roads connecting Arbil and Dohuk with the northern city of Mosul for several hours, a Kurdish

We are not going to use our army to fight our people or to make war on our Kurdish citizens or others. Haider Al Abadi, Iraq’s PM

military official said. “The closure was prompted by fears of a possible attack by Iraqi forces on the disputed areas,” held by Kurdish forces but outside the autonomous Kurdish region in the north of the country, the official said.

Kurdish authorities said late on Wednesday they feared Iraqi government forces and allied paramilitary units were gearing up to launch an assault on the autonomous region.

“We’re receiving dangerous messages that the Hashed Al Shaabi and federal police are preparing a major attack from the southwest of Kirkuk and north of Mosul against Kurdistan,” the Kurdistan Regional Government’s Security Council said.

Security sources said on Thursday that Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service and Rapid Response Force had deployed more forces near peshmerga positions around Rashad, a village some 65 kilometres southwest of Kirkuk city.

The oil-rich province of the same name, areas of which took part in the referendum, is disputed between the Kurds and Baghdad.

Iraq’s Joint Operations Command, which groups all pro-government forces, played down the tensions, expressing confidence that dialogue would resolve the problem.