Turkey, Iran, and Iraq coordinated Kirkuk takeover: PUK spokesperson
“Turkey, Iraq, and Iran agreed to the incursion with Soleimani being Iran’s representative to the commission and Turkey’s representative might have been nominated by Hakan Fidan,” PUK’s Saad Pira said.
Qassem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Quds Force, is a “military advisor” to the Hashd al-Shaabi forces in Iraq, Saad Hadithi, spokesperson of the Iraqi government, told Rudaw TV on Sunday night.
Hakan Fidan is the head of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization.
“Whether or not we had talked with Iraq, they had trilaterally decided to come and take these areas. And it was decided for the Iraqi army to return to areas where they had held oilfields up until 2014,” Pira said.
Pira described an arrest warrant for Vice President of the Kurdistan Region and Deputy Secretary General of the PUK Kosrat Rasul Ali as worthless.
Iraq’s Higher Court has issued an arrest warrant for Rasul for describing the Iraqi forces in Kirkuk as “invaders,” Iraqi State TV reported on Thursday
Iraqi forces took over much of the disputed areas previously held by Kurdish forces in Kirkuk and Nineveh provinces including Kirkuk city, Makhmour, and Shingal.
Pira said neither Masoud Barzani, the president and commander-in-chief of Kurdistan’s armed forces, nor Vice President Kosrat Rasul Ali were aware of an agreement reached between a number of PUK field commanders with the Iraqi armed forces for the Peshmerga to withdraw from Kirkuk.
It was reported by Kurdish media outlets, including Rudaw, that three leading figures of the late Jalal Talabani’s family, Bafel Talabani, Lahur Talabany, and Aras Sheikh Jangi, had ordered PUK Peshmerga forces at several key positions to withdraw and let the Shiite forces and Iraqi army take them over.
Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, a senior leader of the PUK and mother of Bafel Talabani, dismissed the claim in a statement. She said her family members, who wield immense power within the PUK, did not order Peshmerga forces to withdraw.
Bafel Talabani in a televised address on October 12 called on the Kurdistan and Iraqi governments to jointly administer the disputed areas, as a temporary measure. He said that Kurdish and Iraqi forces are “on the specter of war. A war we do not need. A war we do not want.”
President Barzani, in a statement on Tuesday, said “what happened in Kirkuk city was the result of unilateral decisions of some people within a certain internal political party of Kurdistan, which eventually led to the withdrawal of the Peshmerga forces, as was seen."
Kosrat Rasul Ali also blamed members of the PUK, his own party.
“What really deepens the wound is some apostates abandoned the PUK’s doctrine without returning to our party’s leadership and became the invaders’ assistant to obtain some personal, temporary gains,” he said. “With this disgusting act, they are slipping themselves into the black pages of the history of our nation, humiliated.”
Pira said the situation across the disputed areas is now calm.
“Kirkuk is calm, Hashd al-Shaabi is no longer there. Khanaqin is calm, Makhmour is calm, Shingal is calm. There are no problems there,” he said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has ordered the Hashd al-Shaabi to withdraw from Kirkuk and leave the security of the city to the local police supported by elements of the army. It is not clear if Abadi’s order applies to all the disputed areas.
Pira said that despite the Iraqi armed forces’ presence in the disputed areas, “the administration of Kirkuk, Makhmour, Shingal, and other areas will remain Kurdish.”
The Kurdistan Region is still a part of Iraq, “until the day we declare independence,” he said and the Iraqi army is a part of the same country.
Pira denied rumours that units of the Peshmerga had been dissolved following their withdrawal from Kirkuk.