SULAIMANIYAH, Aug 13: Kurdish forces are refusing Iraqi defence ministry orders to pull out of Kurdish-populated areas of ethnically divided Diyala province where they have been deployed for the past two years, their commander said on Wednesday.

The 4,000 strong brigade will withdraw only when ordered to do so by the president of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, its commander General Nazel Kirkuki said.

“The commander of Iraqi ground forces, General Ali Ghidan, asked us to withdraw our forces from the north of Diyala province on August 10 but we’ve received no ordered from the presidency of autonomous Kurdistan,” Kirkuki said.

“We have a brigade deployed in the Saadiya, Qara Tapa and Jalawla districts and we are not budging because so far we’ve received no orders from the (Kurdish regional) presidency to withdraw.” The so-called peshmerga troops made up of Kurdish former rebels have never been integrated into the Iraqi army and continue to operate under the command of the autonomous regional government that holds sway in Iraq’s three far northern provinces.

But with US backing, the disciplined and battlehardened troops have deployed elsewhere in Iraq to support the army in its efforts to rein Sunni Arab insurgents, particularly those loyal to Al Qaeda.

“We came to take part in restoring order in the region and since then we’ve joined numerous operations with US and Iraqi forces,” Kirkuki said.

The deployment in northern districts of Diyala province is a sensitive one as they are Kurdish-inhabited and Kurdish leaders have long sought to incorporate them in the autonomous region which they directly abut.

Commanders have long regarded Diyala as Iraq’s most dangerous province. Its volatile ethnic mix of Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs and Shia Kurds has proved fertile ground for insurgents loyal to Al Qaeda who have made it one of their main strongholds.

Since July 29, mainstream Iraqi security forces have been engaged in a major offensive against Al Qaeda in the province involving 50,000 soldiers and police.

Diyala province is just one of a number of areas where longstanding Kurdish claims have drawn opposition from their non-Kurdish neighbours.

Concerns among Arabs and Turkmen about Kurdish claims to the northern oil province of Kirkuk was the main factor behind the Iraqi parliament’s failure to adopt a provincial election law in time for polls to go ahead as planned in October.

—AFP