Three months after Baghdad took control, tensions high in Kirkuk
The return of Iraqi federal rule in Kirkuk has brought about tensions between the Kurds and others amid joint attempts by the Kurds and the Baghdad government to calm the situation in the province.
KIRKUK, Iraq — In a Jan. 4 meeting with a delegation representing Kurdistan’s opposition parties, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said that an agreement has been reached to calm the situation in Kirkuk province and in the district of Tuz Khormato.
The retaking of Kirkuk by the Iraqi army in October has changed the balance of power in the oil-rich town that had been under full control of the Kurds since 2014. The operation was part of Baghdad’s retaliatory measures after the Kurds held an independence referendum that has since been declared illegal.
In Kirkuk, some signs of the three years of Kurdish control have already been erased. Some pictures of Kurds who fell in the battle against the Islamic State (IS) have been replaced by images of other Iraqis who were killed, and the 20-meter-tall (65-foot) statue of a Kurdish peshmerga fighter on the motorway into the city now has an Iraqi flag.
In his office in the Kirkuk provincial council’s compound in downtown Kirkuk, with the bodyguards of Turkmen and Arab colleagues hanging around in the corridor, independent Kurdish council member Awad Amin said, “All the balances have changed. Some feel that now is the time to readjust all the wrong decisions made by the Kurds.”
