Turkey has thrown its support behind the Iraqi government, whose forces took control of the mainly Kurdish-run city of Kirkuk and its nearby oil fields after last month’s Kurdish independence referendum sparked a confrontation that threatens the balances in a war-weary region.

Iraqi troops were met with little resistance from Kurdish peshmerga fighters in a lightning-quick operation on Monday when they captured the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, part of disputed territories mainly controlled by the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) despite being outside of the autonomous region.

“For years there have been attempts to change the demographic structure in Kirkuk with de facto situations. It is a positive development that the Iraqi central government has retaken control of Kirkuk,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told party members in parliament on Tuesday. 

Late on Monday, Yildirim’s Cabinet decided to close Turkish airspace to flights to and from airports in Kurdish-run northern Iraq and to begin the process of giving the central government control of the Habur border gate, which has been run by the KRG on the Iraqi side.