BAGHDAD: Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi demanded on Monday that Kurdish leaders annul their independence referendum, commit fully to Iraq’s constitutional unity and cease provocations in areas they have “illegally seized.”
These are the conditions for talks with Irbil after last month’s controversial referendum in which more than 90 percent of voters in Iraq Kurdistan supported independent statehood, the prime minister’s spokesman said.
“They must deal with Baghdad as the federal authority that has federal power inside the region,” Ehssan Al-Shimiri, an adviser to the prime minister, told Arab News.
“Imposing the international flight ban was a message that federal authority applies in the region, and that the government has a right to take further measures against the Kurdish leaders,” he said.
“These measures are aimed at isolating the secessionists and to take firm steps against any faction working to destabilize the situation,” Al-Shimiri said.
Baghdad says the referendum was illegal and unconstitutional, and imposed a ban on international flights to and from Irbil and Sulaymaniyah airports. Kurdish leaders insist the result of the referendum must be the basis for talks with the government.
Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) President Masoud Barzani and other Kurdish leaders arrived in Kirkuk on Monday to meet commanders of their peshmerga militia. The commanders included Kamal Kirkuki, Mustafa Chao Rish, Sierwan Barzani and Jaafar Shiekh Mustafa.
Kirkuk is an oil hub with a majority Kurdish population, but is not officially part of the Kurdistan region, but Barzani said: “The identity of Kirkuk is Kurdish and the referendum was a tool to legitimize the decision of the people.”
Kurdistan has controlled the airports at Sulaymaniyah and Irbil since the US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. It took over the Kirkuk oil wells in 2014, when the Iraqi Army fled in the face of an onslaught by Daesh militants. Since then, Iraqi Kurdistan has exported oil via a 970km-pipeline from Kirkuk to Ceyhan in Turkey. The KRG also controls border crossings into Turkey, Syria and Iran.
Despite the income from oil, from the two airports, and from the hundreds of trucks of food and construction materials that cross into the region from neighboring countries, the KRG has complained of a serious shortage of money, and government employees have been paid only 25 percent of their salaries for the past two years.
Federal officials told Arab News that Baghdad intends to take control of the income from oil, the airports and the border crossings to pay employees their full salaries.
“Baghdad has made deals with Iran and Turkey to create isolation zones in front of our border crossing points if Kurdistan refuses to hand over control to Baghdad,” said Fadi Al-Shimiri, a senior Iraqi political leader.
In response to the referendum result, there have also been joint military exercises involving Iran, Iraq and Turkey on their borders with Iraqi Kurdistan. Senior officials told Arab News that the three countries had set up a joint operations room to organize retaking control of the border crossings.
“The first batch of customs staff, and military units to protect them, have arrived at the border posts and will entirely control them,” Fadi Al-Shimiri said.
There are fears in Kurdistan that economic and financial sanctions imposed by Baghdad will hurt them soon, but Al-Abadi said his government would not target or punish the Kurdish people.
“All these measures aim to isolate the secessionists and take firm steps against any faction working to destabilize the situation,” his spokesman Al-Shimiri said.
“So far no decision has been taken to shut down the border crossing points. At the end of the day, neither the government nor the political parties in Baghdad are looking to besiege our people in Kurdistan.”
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Iraq ramps up pressure on Kurds
Iraq ramps up pressure on Kurds
Death toll in Iran protests rises to more than 500, rights group says
DUBAI/JERUSALEM: Unrest in Iran has killed more than 500 people, a rights group said on Sunday, as Tehran threatened to target US military bases if President Donald Trump carries out threats to intervene on behalf of protesters.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest spreadsheet — based on activists inside and outside Iran, US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaking in parliament on Sunday, warned the United States against “a miscalculation.”
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Authorities intensify crackdown
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said security forces had stepped up efforts to confront “rioters.”
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an Internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office on Sunday, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists.”
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.” An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
US ready to help, says Trump
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!“
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
With the Islamic Republic’s clerical establishment facing the biggest demonstrations since 2022, Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if force is used on protesters.
According to its latest spreadsheet — based on activists inside and outside Iran, US-based rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the tolls.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaking in parliament on Sunday, warned the United States against “a miscalculation.”
“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target,” said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
Authorities intensify crackdown
The protests began on December 28 in response to soaring prices, before turning against the clerical rulers who have governed since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting unrest. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said security forces had stepped up efforts to confront “rioters.”
The flow of information from Iran has been hampered by an Internet blackout since Thursday.
Footage posted on social media on Saturday from Tehran showed large crowds marching along a street at night, clapping and chanting. The crowd “has no end nor beginning,” a man is heard saying.
In footage from the northeastern city of Mashhad, smoke can be seen billowing into the night sky from fires in the street, masked protesters, and a road strewn with debris, another video posted on Saturday showed. Explosions could be heard.
Reuters verified the locations.
State TV aired footage of dozens of body bags on the ground at the Tehran coroner’s office on Sunday, saying the dead were victims of events caused by “armed terrorists.”
Three Israeli sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, said Israel was on a high-alert footing for the possibility of any US intervention.
An Israeli military official said the protests were an internal Iranian matter, but Israel’s military was monitoring developments and was ready to respond “with power if need be.” An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment.
Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June last year, which the United States briefly joined by attacking key nuclear installations. Iran retaliated by firing missiles at Israel and an American air base in Qatar.
US ready to help, says Trump
Trump, posting on social media on Saturday, said: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!“
In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of US intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source present for the conversation.
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah and a prominent voice in the fragmented opposition, said Trump had observed Iranians’ “indescribable bravery.” “Do not abandon the streets,” Pahlavi, who is based in the US, wrote on X.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a Paris-based Iranian opposition group, wrote on X that people in Iran had “asserted control of public spaces and reshaped Iran’s political landscape.”
Her group, also known as Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), joined the 1979 revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics and fought them during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Netanyahu, speaking during a cabinet meeting, said Israel was closely monitoring developments. “We all hope that the Persian nation will soon be freed from the yoke of tyranny,” he said.
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