Iraqi PM announces deployment of gov't forces in Kirkuk province

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Monday ordered government forces to enter the oil-rich Kirkuk province in northern Iraq to regain control there, the official Iraqi television reported.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi

Iraq's Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), Federal Police forces and the 9th Armored Division have been deployed in some areas in Kirkuk province, the Iraqiya channel reported.

The troops are pushing to surround the city of Kirkuk, some 250 km north of Baghdad, and to regain control of some military bases, including the huge al-Hurriyah military airbase and the oil fields, the channel 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 Kirluk city.

Abadi, also the commander-in-chief of Iraqi forces, required government forces to cooperate with local people and Peshmerga to maintain social stability and security in Kirkuk, a statement from Abadi's office said.

For his part, regional President Masoud Barzani urged Peshmerga not to start the fire with the Iraqi forces, but to keep ready if they advance toward the Kurdish defensive lines, the Kurdish Radaw media network reported.

Disagreements between 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 Arabs and Turkomans and by the central government in Baghdad.

The areas are mostly under the control of Peshmerga, but in small areas like Tuz-Khurmato, there is a mixed presence of federal forces and the Peshmerga.

The government troops advanced into Kirkuk province hours after a statement from the Iraqi Ministerial Council of National Security, headed by Abadi, accused the Kurds of deploying the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the ethnically-mixed city of Kirkuk, warning that such a move is a "war declaration" on the Iraqi people.

The presence of such militias, in addition to the unofficial militias of the Iraqi Kurdish parties, "is a dangerous escalation that cannot be tolerated and represents a declaration of war against the rest of the Iraqis and regular federal forces."

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

The independence of Kurdistan is opposed not only by the Iraqi central government, but also by most 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.

(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)