ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Fifteen Kurds from the Kurdistan Region who had been arrested by the Shiite Hashd al-Shaabi militia were freed in Khurmatu, following talks by Peshmerga officials to de-escalate tensions.
"The Hashd al-Shaabi freed 15 Kurdish detainees after talks with the Peshmerga," said Brig. Gen. Bakhtyar Mohammed, deputy commander of the Khurmatu front.
He said there were seven other Kurds who had not yet been released.
Mohammed added that the Peshmerga also had arrested militants of the Hashd al-Shaabi, and that "they will be freed soon."
He urged the Kurdish leadership to talk to top Iraqi Shiite officials in Iraq to end the detention of Kurdish people in Khurmatu and other Shiite populated areas in Iraq.
Since the peak of sporadic clashes in Khurmatu over the last week, 21 people have been killed or wounded there, a Peshmerga official told Rudaw Tuesday,
An official at the Khurmatu mayor’s office told Rudaw Monday that several high military officials of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Hashd al-Shaabi Shiite militias met in Khurmatu to discuss escalating violence between the two factions.Ethnically and religiously mixed Khurmatu currently has a Kurdish mayor, and is located in the disputed Diyala province, 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Kirkuk.
Fighting in Khurmatu broke out on Friday when a Shiite militia convoy allegedly refused to stop at a checkpoint manned by Kurdish forces, resulting in a firefight that left three Peshmerga and two Shiite militiamen dead.
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