About the Kurdish Peshmarga Forces in Kirkuk

[Aslan]

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Thousands of Peshmarga forces deployed by the autonomous Kurds in Iraq’s disputed Kirkuk province, which is also claimed by Baghdad, were invited in and should never leave, the governor and a Kurdish MP say.

Several thousand Peshmarga, the de facto military of the Kurdistan Region which gained autonomy after the 2003 US-led ouster of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, were dispatched to Kirkuk in December, after Iraq’s Shiite Arab Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sent in his own troops to grab security control from the Kurds.

Tensions in Kirkuk came to a boil last week, following a deadly police crackdown against anti-government Sunni protesters in the town of Hawija, which killed 63 people. The crackdown has brought closer the Sunnis and Kurds in their opposition to what they say is Maliki’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

“The Peshmarga forces were mobilized by an order from the president of the Kurdistan Region, and only his decision can withdraw them,” said Kirkuk Governor Najmaddin Karim.

He said the Peshmarga had surrounded the town of Hawija, which is located west of Kirkuk city, and that the Peshmarga are deployed around the city to prevent the clash from reaching the provincial capital.

A Peshmarga military source said that 4,000 fighters were deployed around Kirkuk. Since Maliki’s crackdown, many see the Kurdish fighters as their defenders.

Ali Ghedan, commander of the Iraqi army’s ground forces, said the deployment was illegal and contravened an agreement with Baghdad, but a Kurdish Peshmarga spokesman replied it was “ironic” that Baghdad still refers to the agreement with the Kurds, after illegally trying to grab security control from the Kurds.

Ala Talabani, a Kurdish representative in the Iraqi parliament and member of the ruling Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), said that the Peshmarga should never leave.

“The deployment of Peshmarga forces around Kirkuk was one of the best decisions of the Kurdistan Region’s president, and the force should never leave,” he said.

“Mr. Malilki sent a message to Kurds through violence in Hawija. From day one, people from Hawija asked Peshmargas to enter the town but we refused to be part of the conflict,” he said.

Hussein Salih, president of the Hawija district council, said, “We have asked Kurdish forces not to get involved in the Hawija events under the pretext of protecting Kurds in and around Kirkuk. We do not need Kurdish forces in Hawija.”

Nejat Hussein, a member representing Kirkuk’s Turkmen minority at the provincial council, told Rudaw, “The deployment of Peshmarga around Kirkuk should have been discussed with all Kirkuk factions. Tthat way we would know the purpose of the deployment.”

COMMENTS:


10 0 Kurdo | 15 hours ago
The best comment in the article, don't leave. I couldn't agree more. Kirkuks is, have always been, will be a part of Kurdistan. Did anyone asked us before sending thousands of arabs to Kirkuk?


0 0 Nash | 11 hours ago
I think that the peshmerga should've never left kirkuk after the fall of sadam hussian so we didn't have go through all this with new Iraq . things would've been much different for the kurd Now in a much stronger situation Nash from Canada


1 0 Me | 9 hours ago
Sorry for deviating the topic but it is boiling in me, let me pull it out of my chest. This morning I was watching the local Hawler TV, it was a talk show about the banking, credits, interest..etc, and the guest was a local Mullah, people calling the station and the Mullah telling them what is Haram and what is Halal. Now what a cleric has to with accounting?? Why this local Kurdish government allowing such spread of ignorance?? Even on Arab stations and most back-warded tv stations don't show such stupidity, why in Kurdistan??