BAGHDAD: The Iraqi army and allied Shiite-dominated paramilitary troops were on alert to raid Kurdish peshmerga forces in the disputed city of Kirkuk early on Monday after talks failed and a 48-hour deadline passed for the Kurds to withdraw.
“We have reached a dead end. This means we are going to fight,” a senior federal military officer told Arab News.
“The Kurds insist on pushing us to use force as they keep rejecting all constitutional and legal solutions, and want to impose reality by force. OK, we are ready.”
Iraqi troops in southern and western Kirkuk are likely to raid the city and its suburbs in the early hours of Monday, and await orders from their commander-in-chief, Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi, military sources told Arab News.
“As part of the federal security forces, we are in full readiness to implement the orders issued by the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces,” said Ahmed Assadi, spokesman for Al-Hashd Al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Unit). “We are soldiers; we will carry out the orders issued by him without discussion.”
Earlier, Baghdad said the presence in Kirkuk of fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the outlawed Turkish militant group, was “a serious escalation that cannot be tolerated” and “represents a declaration of war.” The Kurdish peshmerga ministry in Irbil denied that any PKK fighters were in Kirkuk.
The crisis erupted last month when Kurds in northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly for independence in a referendum condemned by Baghdad as illegal and unconstitutional.
The federal government banned international flights into and out of the Kurdistan Region, halted financial transactions, ordered repairs to the crucial oil pipeline linking Kirkuk to Ceyhan in Turkey to bypass Kurdistan, and asked Turkey and Iran to stop all trade with the region and shut down land border crossings. Iran closed its border with Iraqi Kurdistan on Sunday.
Kurdish forces have controlled Kirkuk and its lucrative oil fields since June 2014, when the Iraqi army fled in the face of an onslaught by Daesh militants on nearby cities and towns. On Friday, Baghdad gave the Kurds 48 hours to withdraw.
A meeting in Irbil on Sunday between the Iraqi President Fuad Masum, who is Kurdish, the Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barazani and leaders of the two biggest Kurdish political parties, the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (DPK) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), failed to resolve the military standoff in Kirkuk.
Kurdish leaders who took part in the meeting said they rejected Baghdad’s demand that the referendum be annulled as a condition for talks. They insisted on unconditional negotiations under international supervision, and said military threats from Baghdad were unconstitutional.
Federal sources contacted by Arab News said high-level political and security meetings were taking place in Baghdad to discuss the next step.
Control of Kirkuk is vital for the Iraqi Kurds; after Basra, it has the second-largest oil fields in Iraq and is the backbone of the economy of the planned Kurdish state.
“We will not withdraw from one inch of this land for any reason and we are ready,” Kamal Kirkuki, a senior Kurdish leader and the commander of the Kurdish troops in western Kirkuk, told Arab News.
The federal government, he said was “not able to protect the people in the province and its facilities in the face of any future danger. We will not give up and will not allow them to return to our lands … this is out of the question.”
Iraqi Army on alert for attack on Kirkuk
Iraqi Army on alert for attack on Kirkuk
Syrian military tells civilians to evacuate contested area east of Aleppo amid rising tensions
- Syria’s military has announced it will open a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians to evacuate from an area in Aleppo province
- This follows several days of intense clashes between government forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
DAMASCUS: Syria’s military said it would open a corridor Thursday for civilians to evacuate an area of Aleppo province that has seen a military buildup following intense clashes between government and Kurdish-led forces in Aleppo city.
The army’s announcement late Wednesday — which said civilians would be able to evacuate through the “humanitarian corridor” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday — appeared to signal plans for an offensive in the towns of Deir Hafer and Maskana and surrounding areas, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) east of Aleppo city.
The military called on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and other armed groups to withdraw to the other side of the the Euphrates River, to the east of the contested zone.
Syrian government troops have already sent troop reinforcements to the area after accusing the SDF of building up its own forces there, which the SDF denied. There have been limited exchanges of fire between the two sides, and the SDF has said that Turkish drones carried out strikes there.
The government has accused the SDF of launching drone strikes in Aleppo city, including one that hit the Aleppo governorate building on Saturday shortly after two Cabinet ministers and a local official held a news conference there.
The tensions in the Deir Hafer area come after several days of intense clashes last week in Aleppo city that ended with the evacuation of Kurdish fighters and government forces taking control of three contested neighborhoods. The fighting killed at least 23 people, wounded dozens more, and displaced tens of thousands.
The fighting broke out as negotiations have stalled between Damascus and the SDF, which controls large swaths of northeast Syria, over an agreement to integrate their forces and for the central government to take control of institutions including border crossings and oil fields in the northeast.
Some of the factions that make up the new Syrian army, which was formed after the fall of former President Bashar Assad in a rebel offensive in December 2024, were previously Turkiye-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.
The SDF for years has been the main US partner in Syria in fighting against the Daesh group, but Turkiye considers the SDF a terrorist organization because of its association with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a long-running insurgency in Turkiye. A peace process is now underway.
Despite the long-running US support for the SDF, the Trump administration has also developed close ties with the government of interim Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and has pushed the Kurds to implement the integration deal. Washington has so far avoided publicly taking sides in the clashes in Aleppo.
The SDF in a statement warned of “dangerous repercussions on civilians, infrastructure, and vital facilities” in case of a further escalation and said Damascus bears “full responsibility for this escalation and all ensuing humanitarian and security repercussions in the region.”
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, said in a statement Tuesday that the US is “closely monitoring” the situation and called for “all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid actions that could further escalate tensions, and prioritize the protection of civilians and critical infrastructure.” He called on the parties to “return to the negotiating table in good faith.”
Al-Sharaa blasts the SDF
In a televised interview aired Wednesday, Al-Sharaa praised the “courage of the Kurds” and said he would guarantee their rights and wants them to be part of the Syrian army, but he lashed out at the SDF.
He accused the group of not abiding by an agreement reached last year under which their forces were supposed to withdraw from neighborhoods they controlled in Aleppo city and of forcibly preventing civilians from leaving when the army opened a corridor for them to evacuate amid the recent clashes.
Al-Sharaa claimed that the SDF refused attempts by France and the US to mediate a ceasefire and withdrawal of Kurdish forces during the clashes due to an order from the PKK.
The interview was initially intended to air Tuesday on Shams TV, a broadcaster based in Irbil — the seat of northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region — but was canceled for what the station initially said were technical reasons.
Later the station’s manager said that the interview had been spiked out of fear of further inflaming tensions because of the hard line Al-Sharaa took against the SDF.
Syria’s state TV station instead aired clips from the interview on Wednesday. There was no immediate response from the SDF to Al-Sharaa’s comments.
