Kurdish Forces Withdraw to June 2014 Lines
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Kurdish forces have retreated to positions they held in northern Iraq in June 2014 in response to an Iraqi army advance into the region after a Kurdish independence referendum, a senior Iraqi commander said Wednesday.
An Iraqi military statement said government forces had taken control of Kurdish-held areas of Nineveh province, including the Mosul hydro-electric dam, Tuesday after Peshmerga forces pulled back.
Baghdad’s forces Monday recaptured the major oil city of Kirkuk to the south shortly after the Peshmerga abandoned it.
The Peshmerga had advanced into Nineveh and the Kirkuk region over the past three years as part of the war against Daesh (ISIL) militants.
“As of today we reversed the clock back to 2014,” the Iraqi army commander, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. There was no immediate comment from Kurdish leaders.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, spokesman of the government’s Joint Operations Command (JOC), hinted that federal forces could yet be deployed to the remaining pockets of disputed territory still in Kurdish hands.
“It’s not a military operation but the redeployment of forces to all areas to enforce the law,” Rasool said. “Further communiques will follow.”
The JOC said Wednesday that “security (had) been restored in parts of Kirkuk including the key Khabbaz and Bai Hassan North and South oil fields.”
The lost fields accounted for more than 400,000 of the 650,000 barrels per day that the autonomous Kurdish region used to export in defiance of Baghdad.
Their loss deals a huge blow to the region’s already dire finances and dreams of economic self-sufficiency.
Kurdish forces now hold just a single oil field in Kirkuk province: the Khurmala field, which produces barely 10,000 barrels per day of low quality heavy crude.
The field had been in Kurdish hands since 2008 and was not a target of this week’s operation. But all five of the fields that the Kurds had taken since 2014, the source of most of the autonomous region’s oil exports, are back in federal government hands.
Baghdad was quick to capitalize on its gains.
Oil Minister Jabbar Luaybi urged British energy giant BP to “quickly make plans to develop the Kirkuk oil fields.” Baghdad signed a consultancy contract with BP in 2013 to help develop the Havana and Baba Gurgur fields.
Also Wednesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the prosecution of anyone found circulating fake videos aimed at inciting strife between Kurds and Arabs and endangering civil peace in areas retaken by Baghdad’s forces.
