IRAQ’S KIRKUK UNDER CURFEW AFTER RIVAL PROTESTS TURN DEADLY

Sat 02 September 2023:

Following deadly skirmishes between Kurdish and Arab citizens, Prime Minister Muhammed Shia al-Sudani imposed a curfew in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

In a written statement, he said al-Sudani ordered his security forces to launch an operation against rioters in the city and arrest them if they threaten the security.

He called on all parties to “play their part in preventing strife and preserving security, stability and order in Kirkuk Governorate”.

At least one civilian was killed and eight people were injured, a local official said, after days of brewing tensions in Kirkuk, which has historically been disputed between the federal government in Baghdad and the authorities in the autonomous Kurdish region in the north.

Supporters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) staged a demonstration in Kirkuk on Saturday to demand the reopening of the Kirkuk-Erbil highway.

The highway was closed by Iraqi Turkmens who oppose the handover of the Joint Operations Command building to the KDP.

Protesters blocked some roads by burning tires with police firing warning shots, according to witnesses.

Ambulances were dispatched to the area, witnesses said.

In 2014, the KDP and the Peshmerga, the security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region, took control of Kirkuk, an oil-producing region of northern Iraq. Federal troops expelled them in 2017 after an abortive referendum on Kurdish independence.

Last week, protests broke out in Kirkuk against a government decision to hand over the building to the KDP, which argues that the building was previously used by them and it should be given back to the party.

Peshmerga forces of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) were deployed to bases evacuated by the Iraqi army in Kirkuk following the emergence of the Daesh/ISIS terrorist group in 2014.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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