"We welcome Kurdistan Regional Government statement declaring immediate ceasefire & halt to military [operations.] Calm [and] dialogue are steps forward," read a Wednesday tweet from US State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert.
The position of the State Department comes after the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) released a statement early on Wednesday morning that was a proposal for a way forward.
Arguing against what would be a devastating war between Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, the KRG proposed three things: the cessation of fighting in the Kurdistan Region; freezing the outcome of the independence referendum; and beginning dialogue with the federal government on the basis of the Iraqi constitution.
The central government objected the September 25 vote, especially it being held in the disputed areas.
At the request of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Iraq's parliament, Iraqi security forces including those trained by the United States and Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitary units entered disputed or Kurdistani areas claimed by Baghdad and Erbil last week.
Their taking control of areas administered by the KRG resulted in deadly clashes between the Iraqis and the Peshmerga forces. A number of civilians were also killed and over 160,000 people were displaced.
The United States has maintained it disagreed with the timing of the Kurdistan Region's referendum and offered a last minute proposal to the Kurdish leadership to call off the vote. Kurdistan Region President Masoud Barzani, who led the 'Yes' vote campaign, said they never received a “stronger alternative” to the referendum with the goal of independence.
In its responses to last week’s violence, the US reserved its harshest criticism for Iran.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Iranian elements of the Iraqi paramilitaries “to go home,” a comment the Hashd al-Shaabi called a “baseless accusation.”
Tillerson met with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Riyadh and in Baghdad on Sunday and Monday.
Iraqi PM Abadi: We want to work with Iran and US
Abadi requested the United States not bring its “trouble inside of Iraq” following remarks by Washington that it was concerned about Iranian influences in Iraq.
Abadi spoke to reporters from The Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday.
“We would like to work with you, both of you,” Washington Post reported Abadi as saying of the United States and Iran. “But please don’t bring your trouble inside Iraq. You can sort it anywhere else.”
Kurds have longed for independence since the breakup of the Ottoman Empire in the 20th century left them without a state of their own. The Kurdistan Region's non-binding independence referendum aimed to voice the desires of those living in its four provinces, along with those in oil-rich and diverse disputed or Kurdistani areas claimed by Erbil and Baghdad.
“In all honesty, I think this aspiration has been pushed back many years now,” Abadi said, adding that Kurdish independence would require a nationwide consensus.
Abadi saw the referendum as a unilateral act by the KRG.
"We’ve said it publicly since this call for the referendum in the Kurdistan areas, and we told them we are citizens of one country, you can’t just draw a line and say I’m going to protect it with blood," Abadi said, according to the LA Times. "This is not your right."
The prime minister believes the Iraqi constitution guarantees federal control of places like Kirkuk.
"Disputed areas, under the Iraqi constitution must be under the control of the federal state," he added.
The Kurdistan Region is a key link and land bridge between Iraq, Turkey and beyond to Europe, another flashpoint for relations between Erbil and Baghdad.
“Iraq must have a border with Turkey. They should not cut Iraq from Turkey,” Abadi said, according to the WSJ. “The Kurds are our citizens. My priority is to protect them, to protect the rest of Iraqis, but I’m sending a powerful message: if you continue to kill Iraqi soldiers you will be held responsible.”
Kurds make up around 20 percent of the Iraqi population and complain the Iraqi constitution has not been followed, notably Article 140 which was to settle the disputed areas in 2007 but was never implemented, even when there was a large US troop presence.
When the United States withdrew its combat troops in 2010, Sunni extremists became disenfranchised in the Shiite-majority country under then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki who leads Abadi's party. ISIS rose in 2013 with the Iraqi army retreating from areas in 2014, including the disputed areas and the country's second-largest city of Mosul.
US Senator McCain: 'I choose the Kurds'
If the United States is forced to choose between Iranian-backed militias and the Kurds in Iraq, US Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Committee on Armed Services, prefers its decades-long US ally.
"Let me be clear..." wrote the six-term US senator in a New York Time opinion-editorial on Wednesday, "I choose the Kurds."
He questioned whether Baghdad can guarantee the Kurdish people, "security, freedom and opportunities they desire."
The Peshmerga have been partners, at times clandestine, of the United States since the 1960s and were key allies in the fight against ISIS, sacrificing around 2,000 soldiers.
"The United States offered arms and training to the government of Iraq to fight the Islamic State [ISIS] and secure Iraq from external threats — not to attack Iraqi Kurds, who are some of America’s most trusted and capable partners in the region," said McCain.
McCain noted reports of Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani near Kirkuk when "preparing military advances on Kurdish positions by Iranian-backed Iraqi militias to augment the broader efforts of Iraqi security forces."
McCain blamed the "unfortunate legacy" Middle East policy that the Barack Obama administration left for Donald Trump.
"This is totally unacceptable," said the senator.
McCain and Trump are both of the Republican party, but have clashed with the latter poking fun at McCain's time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
The senator from Arizona last visited the Kurdistan Region in late 2014. He applauded Peshmerga forces for their resistance against ISIS. He has since twice visited Kurdish fighters in northern Syria's Rojava.
McCain, 80, was diagnosed with brain cancer this summer. Kurdish leaders, including those in the Kurdistan Regional Government, were fast to wish him a speedy recovery.
The Senate Committee on Armed Forces has legislative oversight on US military spending. Kurdish Peshmerga have benefited from hundreds of millions of dollars in line-item Iraqi Train & Equip Funding.
The National Defense Authorization Act for 2018 has passed both legislative chambers in the US Congress, and differences between the House and Senate versions are being resolved before it is put on Trump's desk.
Kurdish forces are eligible to receive funds, but in the September 18 version they must have "a national security mission" or be "at a base or facility of the Government of Iraq" involved in "activities of the Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq."
Updated at 8:46 pm
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