Iraqi forces yesterday retook positions controlled by Kurdish peshmerga fighters since 2014 in the oil-rich province amid a bitter row with the Kurds over a vote for independence last month, the AFP (Agence France-Presse) website reports today (October 14, 2017).
A senior Kurdish official said thousands of heavily armed fighters had been deployed to defend themselves "at any cost" against the Iraqi operation and called for international intervention.
Ethnically divided but historically Kurdish-majority Kirkuk is one of several regions that peshmerga fighters took over from the Iraqi army in 2014 when Islamic State (IS) group swept through much of northern and western Iraq.
Baghdad is bitterly opposed to Kurdish ambitions to incorporate the oil-rich province in its autonomous region in the north and is determined to take it back.
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