KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region – Police in Kirkuk have decided to move their headquarters to a safer military airbase in the volatile Iraqi city, raising tensions with the army which opposes the decision, officials said.
“The police department plans to temporarily relocate to the airbase. The current location is not safe, as it is in the center of the city,” said a police source in Kirkuk.
But a spokesperson from the military’s 12th Division warned of “regretful consequences” if “the police department continues to pressure us.”
Officials said the police decision was taken after a series of attacks on their headquarters, most recently last month, when a suicide bomber and gunmen killed more than 30 people in a coordinated assault.
“The army has threatened possible confrontation if the police attempt to move in,” the police source warned.
The base, south of the city, was originally built as a civilian airport in the 1950s. It was used as a military base by US forces after their 2003 invasion, and handed to the Iraqi army after the Americans withdrew in 2011.
Since then, the city’s governor has been pushing to turn it back to a civilian airport, and his office said both the Iraqi government and ministry of transportation have agreed to this plan.
Ahmad Askari, a member of the governor’s security committee, confirmed the disagreements between the army and police, saying he believed it was a direct challenge to the Kirkuk civilian administration.
“The army needs to deploy outside the city and respect its boundaries, instead of threatening the police,” he said.
“We are not in favor of any confrontation with the police,” Lt. Haidar Karim, a spokesperson for the 12th Division, told Rudaw.
“Increasing pressure by the police department may have bad consequences,” he warned.
Kirkuk is an ethnically-mixed, energy-rich city that is claimed both by Iraq’s central government and the autonomous Kurdistan Region in the north.
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