Iraq troops in armed standoff with Kurd forces

Maryam Beik (Iraq), Oct 14 (AFP) Thousands of Iraqitroops were locked in an armed standoff with Kurdish forces inthe disputed oil province of Kirku...
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Maryam Beik (Iraq), Oct 14 (AFP) Thousands of Iraqitroops were locked in an armed standoff with Kurdish forces inthe disputed oil province of Kirkuk today as Washingtonscrambled to avert fighting between the key allies in the waragainst the Islamic State group.

The clock was ticking down to 2300 GMT today deadlinethat the Kurds say Baghdad has set for their forces tosurrender positions they took during the fightback against thejihadists over the past three years.

Armoured cars of the Iraqi army bearing the national flagwere posted on the bank of a river on the southern outskirtsof the city of Kirkuk, an AFP photographer reported.

On the opposite bank, Kurdish peshmerga fighters werevisible behind an earthen embankment topped with concreteblocks painted with the red, white green and yellow of theKurdish flag.

"Our forces are not moving and are now waiting for ordersfrom the general staff," an Iraqi army officer told AFP,asking not to be identified.

The two sides have been at loggerheads since the Kurdsvoted overwhelmingly for independence in a September 25referendum that Baghdad rejected as illegal.

Polling was held not only in the three provinces of theautonomous Kurdish region but also in adjacent Kurdish-heldareas, including Kirkuk.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has said there canbe no further discussion of the Kurds' longstanding demands toincorporate Kirkuk and other historically Kurdish-majorityareas in their autonomous region until the independence voteis annulled.

He insisted on Thursday that he was "not going... to makewar on our Kurdish citizens".

But thousands of heavily armed troops and members of thePopular Mobilisation Force (PMF) -- paramilitary units largelymade up of Iran-trained Shiite militias -- have massed aroundKirkuk.

They have already retaken a string of positions to thesouth of the city after Kurdish forces withdrew.

The Kurds have deployed thousands of peshmerga fightersto the area around Kirkuk itself and have vowed to defend thecity "at any cost."So far the front lines have been quiet but the Kurds saidthey had received an ultimatum to withdraw.

"The deadline set for the peshmerga to return to theirpre-June 6, 2014 positions will expire during the night," asenior Kurdish official told AFP, asking not to be identified.

Asked at what time, he said 2300 GMT today.

The official's comments came as Iraqi President FuadMasum, who is himself a Kurd, was holding crisis talks in theKurdish city of Sulaimaniyah.

The June 2014 lines are those that the Kurds held beforeIslamic State group (IS) fighters swept through vast areasnorth and west of Baghdad, prompting many Iraqi army units todisintegrate and Kurdish forces to step in.

The Kurds currently control the city of Kirkuk and threemajor oil fields in the province which account for asignificant share of the regional government's oil revenues.

Washington has military advisers deployed with both sidesin the standoff and Defence Secretary Jim Mattis saidyesterday that it was working to reduce tensions.

"We are trying to tone everything down and to figure outhow we go forward without losing sight of the enemy, and atthe same time recognising that we have got to find a way tomove forward," Mattis told reporters.

"Everybody stay focused on defeating ISIS. We can't turnon each other right now. We don't want to go to a shootingsituation," he added, using an alternative acronym for IS.

Last week, the Iraqi army retook the Sunni Arab insurgentbastion of Hawija, the last town in Kirkuk province in IShands, but there has been fighting in the countryside since.

The tensions between the Kurds and the Shiite militias inKirkuk have spilled over into sporadic violence elsewhere inIraq.

In the mainly Shiite Turkmen town of Tuz Khurmatu inneighbouring Salaheddin province, three PMF paramilitaries andtwo Kurdish peshmerga were wounded in a firefight overnight,town council spokesman Shalal Abdul said.

In the mainly Shiite city of Hilla, south of Baghdad, theoffices of a Kurdish-owned mobile phone company werefirebombed and three of its staff briefly abducted, policesaid. (AFP)ZH.

This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.

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