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Iraq to deploy soldiers to key Kurdistan border crossing

Sunday, 29 October 2017 6:50 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 29 October 2017 6:59 PM ]

Iraqi forces gather at their camp on the front line in the northwestern town of Fishkhabur, near the borders with Syria and Turkey, on October 28, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Members of the Iraqi Federal Police force are going to be deployed to a key border crossing in the country’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region after Iraqi government forces and Kurdish Peshmerga fighters reached an agreement in a bid to resolve a conflict about control of border crossings.

An Iraqi government source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Iraqi and Kurdish military commanders struck a deal in the strategic northern city of Mosul, located some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of the capital Baghdad, late on Sunday for government forces to take control of Fishkhabur border crossing.

Fishkhabur is a vital oil export point on the border with Turkey and Syria.

Peshmerga fighters exchanged heavy artillery fire with the Iraqi army soldiers there over the past few days. Iraqi officials then gave the Kurds an ultimatum to withdraw from the area around Fishkhabur “within several hours.”

Iraqi forces gather at their camp on the front line in the northwestern town of Fishkhabur, near the borders with Syria and Turkey, on October 28, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

On Friday, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered a 24-hour suspension of military operations against Kurdish forces to allow for talks.

Abadi said the talks were meant to pave the way for the peaceful deployment of Iraqi troops at the border crossings of Kurdistan region.

Tensions simmered between Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Baghdad government in the wake of last month’s Kurdish independence referendum and a dire "threat of civil war" there.

The referendum on secession of the Kurdistan region was held on September 25 despite strong opposition from Iraqi authorities, the international community, and Iraq's neighboring countries, especially Turkey and Iran.

On October 12, an Iraqi government spokesman said Baghdad had set a series of conditions that the KRG needed to meet before any talks on the resolution of the referendum crisis could start.

Kurdish officials empty ballots from a box after the closure of polls during the referendum on independence at a polling station in Erbil, the capital city of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on September 25, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

“The KRG must first commit to Iraq's unity. The local authorities in the [Kurdistan] region… must accept the sovereign authority of the federal government on… oil exports, [as well as] security and border protection, including land and air entry points,” the unnamed Iraqi official added.

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Iraq Haider al-Abadi Middle East Kurdish forces Kurdish Peshmerga Iraqi forces Kurdistan Iraqi military Iraqi army border crossing referendum independence