BAGHDAD: Iraqi forces set a tight deadline Friday for Kurdish fighters to withdraw from an area on the Turkish border that is critical for oil exports, a government source told AFP.
The senior security source, asking not to be named, said Kurdish peshmerga fighters were being given “a few hours” to pull out of the area around the Fishkhabur border post.
Clashes between the two sides had ceased “with only occasional exchanges of fire,” said the source.
Iraqi forces on Thursday mounted a new assault on Kurdish fighters in the disputed oil-rich Zummar area of Nineveh province, triggering heavy artillery exchanges.
In an advance over dusty terrain with armored vehicles, government forces recaptured villages close to the route of a strategic oil export pipeline linking the Kirkuk fields retaken from the Kurds earlier this month with the Turkish port of Ceyhan.
The Kurds shut down the pipeline during the 2014 sweep through northern and western Iraq by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group and built their own pipeline further north.
The Fishkhabur region, at the extreme edge of autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan and where the Turkish, Iraqi and Syrian borders converge, is of strategic importance to both Baghdad and the Kurds of northern Iraq.
The Kurds have been defending the Zummar and Rabiya areas of Fishkhabur because they are used by Kurdish forces battling IS in Syria to smuggle out fuel products by tanker trucks to Turkey, according to the Iraqi source.
The UN Security Council on Thursday urged Iraq’s government and Kurdish leaders to set a timetable for talks on ending their conflict triggered by a September 25 independence referendum held by the Kurds in defiance of Baghdad.
Iraq sets deadline for Kurds to quit Turkey border post
Iraq sets deadline for Kurds to quit Turkey border post
UN chief expresses deep concern over escalating Iran-US tensions
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for diplomatic engagement to resolve differences between the United States and Iran amid a surge in military activities and rhetoric across the Middle East, his spokesperson said on Friday.
“We are very concerned about the heightened rhetoric we’re seeing around the region by the heightened military activities, war games or just military, increased military, naval presence in the region. And we encourage both the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue to engage in diplomacy in order to settle the differences,” said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson for UN secretary-general.
The call for restraint follows a formal letter delivered on Thursday by Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN, addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council. Iravani emphasized that Iran is prepared to exercise its inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, promising a decisive and proportionate response to any military aggression.
Iravani further warned that in such a scenario, all bases, facilities, and assets belonging to hostile forces in the Middle East would constitute legitimate targets for Iranian defensive measures. The envoy added that the United States would bear full and direct responsibility for any unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences resulting from further provocations.
