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KRG asks US forces to deploy along Kurdish-controlled part of Iraqi-Syrian border

In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani’s deputy chief of staff outlined why the Kurdish region's government wants US forces stationed in and around the Fish Khabur border crossing.
Syrian-Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and members of the Rojava Forces Defence Units walk near the town of Faysh Khabur, which lies in Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region near the three-way border crossing between Iraq-Syria-Turkey on March 29, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / SAFIN HAMED        (Photo credit should read SAFIN HAMED/AFP via Getty Images)

The Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq has formally asked the US-led coalition to deploy observers to patrol its border with the Kurdish-controlled northeast of Syria, where a US-backed Kurdish militia and its various affiliates have governed since 2012, Al-Monitor has learned.

Masrour Barzani, the prime minister of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), made the request to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a telephone call Tuesday at noon EST, Iraqi Kurdish officials told Al-Monitor. The officials declined to comment on Pompeo's reaction. The exchange with Pompeo follows a formal request relayed during Barzani's Dec. 21 meeting with the commanding general of the Special Operations Joint Task-Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, Brig. Gen. Guillaume Beaurpere.

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