Kurds Block Iraqi Forces Access To Kirkuk’s Oil Fields.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters rejected a warning from an Iraqi paramilitary force to withdraw from a strategic junction south of Kirkuk, which controls the access to some of the region’s main oilfields, a Kurdish security official told Reuters on Sunday.
Qassem Soleimani, Iranian Major General arrived in Iraq’s Kurdistan region for talks about the escalating crisis between the Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi government following last month’s Kurdish independence referendum.
Meanwhile, Kurdish official said,
Popular Mobilization had given the Peshmerga until midnight local time (2100 GMT Saturday) to leave a position north of the Maktab Khalid junction, an official from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Security Council said.
We are waiting for new orders, no extension is expected,” he said.
The Kurdish position north of the junction controls the access to an important air base and Bai Hassan, one of the main crude oil fields of the region, the KRG official said.
The air base and their immediate surroundings, including the oilfields, are under Kurdish control.
Young Kurds took up arms, deployed in the streets of Kirkuk with machine guns as the news of the warning spread, according to an unnamed resident report.
The KRG and the Shiite-led central government in Baghdad are at loggerheads since the Sept. 25 vote, which delivered an overwhelming yes for Kurdish independence.
Popular Mobilization is a separate force from the regular army and officially reports to Abadi. It is deployed alongside the army south and west of Kirkuk.
Kurdish Peshmerga fighters rejected a warning from an Iraqi paramilitary force to withdraw from a strategic junction south of Kirkuk, which controls the access to some of the region’s main oilfields, a Kurdish security official told Reuters on Sunday.
Qassem Soleimani, Iranian Major General arrived in Iraq’s Kurdistan region for talks about the escalating crisis between the Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi government following last month’s Kurdish independence referendum.
Meanwhile, Kurdish official said,
Popular Mobilization had given the Peshmerga until midnight local time (2100 GMT Saturday) to leave a position north of the Maktab Khalid junction, an official from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Security Council said.
We are waiting for new orders, no extension is expected,” he said.
The Kurdish position north of the junction controls the access to an important air base and Bai Hassan, one of the main crude oil fields of the region, the KRG official said.
The air base and their immediate surroundings, including the oilfields, are under Kurdish control.
Young Kurds took up arms, deployed in the streets of Kirkuk with machine guns as the news of the warning spread, according to an unnamed resident report.
The KRG and the Shiite-led central government in Baghdad are at loggerheads since the Sept. 25 vote, which delivered an overwhelming yes for Kurdish independence.
Popular Mobilization is a separate force from the regular army and officially reports to Abadi. It is deployed alongside the army south and west of Kirkuk.
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