Thousands of Iraqi troops were locked in an armed standoff with Kurdish forces in the disputed oil-rich province of Kirkuk as Washington scrambled to avert fighting between its allies in the war against ISIS, reported AFP.
The Kurds said Saturday that Baghdad had set a deadline for their forces to surrender positions they took during the fight against the jihadists over the past three years.
Hemin Hawrami, Senior assistant to President Masoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Regional Government, said in a twitter message:
We are a peaceful people and been victims of history & oppresion. We never attacked any one, always defended our people & our land. For protecting Kirkuk , every single Kurd is a peshemrge. Do not test our will. pic.twitter.com/16nu9ymvo8
— Hemin Hawrami (@heminhawrami) October 12, 2017
On Saturday, armored vehicles bearing the Iraqi national flag were posted on the bank of a river on the southern outskirts of the city of Kirkuk, an AFP photographer reported.
On the opposite bank, Kurdish peshmerga fighters were visible behind an earthen embankment topped with concrete blocks and the red, white, green and yellow colors of the Kurdish flag.
"Our forces are not moving and are now waiting for orders from the general staff," an Iraqi army officer told AFP, asking not to be identified.
Just before midnight (2100 GMT) Iraqi forces used megaphones to call on the Peshmerga fighters to withdraw, said AFP.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said there can be no discussion of the Kurds’ long-standing demands to incorporate Kirkuk and other historically Kurdish areas in their autonomous region until the independence vote is annulled.
He insisted on Thursday that he was “not going... to make war on our Kurdish citizens”.
But, reports AFP, thousands of heavily armed troops and members of the Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) — paramilitary units largely made up of Iran-trained Shia militias — have massed around Kirkuk.
They have already retaken a string of positions to the south of the city after Kurdish forces withdrew.
The Kurds deployed thousands of Peshmerga fighters to the area around Kirkuk itself and have vowed to defend the city “at any cost”.
Just hours before the deadline, a Peshmerga commander on the western front said Kurdish fighters had “taken all the necessary measures” and were “ready for a confrontation” if necessary.
If “the other side makes the mistake of advancing, we’ll give them a lesson they won’t forget in a hurry”, Kamal Kirkuki said.
So far the front lines have been quiet but the Kurds said they had received an ultimatum to withdraw.
“The deadline set for the Peshmerga to return to their pre-June 6, 2014 positions will expire during the night,” a senior Kurdish official told AFP, asking not to be identified.
Asked at what time, he said 2300 GMT on Saturday.
The official’s comments came as Iraqi President Fuad Masum, who is himself a Kurd, was holding crisis talks in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.
The June 2014 lines are those that the Kurds held before ISIS swept through vast areas north and west of Baghdad, prompting many Iraqi army units to disintegrate and Kurdish forces to fill the vacuum.
The Kurds control the city of Kirkuk and three major oil fields in the province which account for a significant share of the regional government’s oil revenues.