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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Tensions rise before Kurdish independence vote

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UNRELENTING: Kurdish President Barzani says vote will go ahead in the abscence of any international guarantee on talks -


KIRKUK, Iraq: Police deployed overnight in the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk to prevent any outbreak of ethnic violence ahead of a referendum on Kurdish independence strongly opposed by the Baghdad government, local residents said.


The Kurdish region plans to hold the September 25 vote despite an Iraqi government warning it is “playing with fire” and US declarations the move could undermine the fight against IS militants.


The referendum could raise particular tension in Kirkuk, where Kurds vie with Turkmen and Arabs for power.


Kurdish security and the city police erected checkpoints across Kirkuk after a Kurd was killed in a clash with the guards of a Turkmen political party office in the city.


Two other Kurds and a Turkmen security guard were wounded in the clash that broke out when a Kurdish convoy celebrating the referendum, carrying Kurdish flags, drove by the Turkmen party office, according to security sources.


The Kurdish dead and wounded were among those celebrating, they said.


Turkey, which has put troops and tanks on exercises close to the border with the Kurdish region, has long seen itself as the protector of Iraq’s Turkmen minority.


When Iraqi Kurds raised their flag over the city in April, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared that Kirkuk could not be a Kurdish city.


Turkish soldiers, scheduled for manoeuvres the day after the referendum is due, were spotted digging in at a point about two km from the frontier.


But Ankara has cultivated close political and business ties with the Kurdish regional government, and would be loath to disrupt commerce, especially in oil, through any intervention.


Tensions rose after the Kurdish-led provincial council voted this month to include Kirkuk in the referendum despite the fact that the city lies outside the official boundaries of the autonomous Kurdistan region.


Kurdish peshmerga fighters prevented Kirkuk’s oilfields from falling into IS hands when they seized the city and other disputed territories when the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of an IS advance in 2014.


In recent months, IS has been driven back across Iraq, but remains dug in close to Kirkuk.


Iraqi armed forces announced on Tuesday the start of an attack to dislodge IS from the town of Ana as they push westward towards Al Qaim, the border post with Syria.


Iranian-backed militias, highlighting the broader perils emanating from the vote, have threatened to dislodge peshmerga forces from Kirkuk should the Kurds persist in holding the vote.


The Kurdish authorities are showing no sign of bowing despite intense international pressure and regional appeals to call off the vote, which Baghdad says is unconstitutional and a prelude to breaking up the country.


The United States has been a close ally of the Kurds but it is not clear whether Washington’s opposition to the vote could persuade them to call off the vote.


Friction between the Kurdish autonomous region and Baghdad has simmered for years.


The Kurds have complained that the central government has not paid the salaries of civil servants in Kurdistan, while Baghdad has strongly opposed Kurdish sales of oil without its consent.


On Tuesday, Kirkuk’s provincial council voted to reject an Iraqi parliament vote last week to dismiss governor Najmaddin Kareem.


The decision to remove him came after Kirkuk — claimed by both the Baghdad and regional Kurdish governments — voted to take part in the referendum.


Iran and Turkey fear contagion for their own Kurdish populations.


Turkey has been fighting a Kurdish insurgency in its southeast since 1984.


Iraqi Kurdish President Massoud Barzani said late on Monday he would proceed with the vote in the absence of any international guarantee that Baghdad would hold talks on Kurdish independence.


“Referendum and dialogue are means towards independence,” Barzani told visiting British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, during a meeting in Erbil, seat of the Kurdish government.


Iraq has been struggling to find a formula for stability since a US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, unleashing sectarian tensions that triggered a civil war.


Although US-backed Iraqi forces have dislodged IS from its urban stronghold of Mosul and dashed its dreams of a caliphate, security officials say the militants will now wage guerrilla war in a new attempt to destabilise Iraq. Three people were killed and 34 injured after two suicide bombers targeted a restaurant on the road between the northern towns of Tikrit and Beiji on Tuesday, the Interior Ministry said. Security forces killed a third suicide bomber outside the restaurant.  — Reuters


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