US, Kurd forces take Kirkuk: •Americans to keep control •Small fighting near airport
KIRKUK, April 10: Washington-backed Kurdish forces captured northern Iraq’s key oil city of Kirkuk on Thursday, but Turkey, fearful of Kurdish designs on statehood, promptly warned against any attempts by the Kurds to remain in the city.
Kurdish irregular fighters known as peshmergas, aided by US special forces, moved into Kirkuk to quell what they said was a popular uprising following the departure of troops loyal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Speaking hours after the capture, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said he had received guarantees from US Secretary of State Colin Powell to drive them out.
“He (Powell) said the 173rd paratroopers brigade will go to Kirkuk in a few hours and force out those who have entered,” Mr Gul said.
He added that Washington had rejected an offer of military help in case there were not enough US soldiers in the area, but had invited Ankara to send military officials to monitor the situation on the ground.
“We will have military observers there... They (the United States) made the offer and we accepted it,” Mr Gul said.
In Washington, Whits House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that “American forces will be in control of Kirkuk”.
A Turkish government official later said a first group of US troops had arrived in the city in the evening and a second was on its way.
And late in the night, a Kurdish official said his forces would leave the town on Friday.
Ankara fears that control of local oil resources could embolden Iraqi Kurds to move towards independence, a prospect that could set an example to their restless fellow Kurds across the border in Turkey.
It has repeatedly threatened to intervene militarily if local Kurds are allowed to seize Kirkuk or Mosul, the largest city in northern Iraq.
The United States is staunchly opposed to any Turkish intervention in the region, fearing clashes between Turkish troops and Iraqi Kurds.
Kirkuk is historically Kurdish, and Kurds who have held their own northern enclave protected by US and British warplanes since the end of the 1991 US invasion, see it as their future capital in a federal Iraq.
Hosman Banimarany, military commander of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish factions governing Iraqi Kurdistan, said that “peshmergas and the Americans entered Kirkuk after the population staged an uprising”.
“When the Iraqis finished their withdrawal, the population rose up. There was some small fighting close to the airport. We then entered to stabilize the situation,” he said.
A US soldier also said American troops had entered the city to restore stability in Kirkuk, but he said guerillas already in the city had stirred it up.
Mr Banimarany also said the peshmergas (Kurdish fighters), who have been working closely with US special forces harassing Iraqi positions and calling in airstrikes, would stay in Kirkuk to “make our plans for Tikrit”, Saddam Hussein’s stronghold on the road to Baghdad.
He said his forces were in control of the city’s oilfields. A US official assisting the Kurd advance also confirmed American units had taken up positions around the fields.
Kirkuk is the centre of the country’s oil industry and has been one of the key objectives of the three-week-old joint coalition and Kurdish rebel military push in northern Iraq.
They took several hours to demolish the statue, showing Saddam wearing traditional robes, with sledgehammers and a cable, as they cried “Down with Saddam, Bush, Bush!”
TURKEY ASSURED: A representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), whose militia seized Kirkuk, said PUK leader Jalal Talabani had asked him to assure “our Turkish friends” that their forces would leave the town.
“This night US forces will come down with parachutes and we will give them Kirkuk. He (Talabani) told me that we will go out tomorrow (Friday),” Bahroz Galali said, adding that about 10,000 PUK fighters had entered the town.
Kurds deny they are seeking independence for their mountainous enclave but Turkey remains deeply suspicious of their political ambitions.
A senior Turkish diplomat said Ankara would not agree to any permanent Kurdish control over Kirkuk.
“It would be unacceptable if they (the Kurds) entered the town to take control and set up an administration,” said the diplomat. —AFP
KIRKUK, April 10: Washington-backed Kurdish forces captured northern Iraq’s key oil city of Kirkuk on Thursday, but Turkey, fearful of Kurdish designs on statehood, promptly warned against any attempts by the Kurds to remain in the city.
