Baghdad to pay Peshmerga, Kurdistan civil servants

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi announced on Tuesday that federal security forces had redeployed in all disputed areas adjacent to the Kurdish region.

کد خبر: ۷۴۳۳۳۰

تاریخ: ۱۰ آبان ۱۳۹۶ - ۰۸:۱۸

He added that his government would pay the delayed salaries of Kurdish troops and government employees in Kurdistan.

A high-level joint military committee began the process of handing over the international Syria-Iraq-Turkey border crossings in the region to federal authorities two days ago, military sources told Arab News.

The handing over of regional airports and the cancelation of the referendum are both still pending.

Separately, Iraq and Turkish forces gained control of the Habur border gate, also known as the Ibrahim Al-Khalil border gate on the Iraqi side, from the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and raised the Iraqi national flag.

Iraqi military forces were deployed at the Ibrahim Al-Khalil crossing in Iraqi territories, alongside Turkish forces, after a joint drill in Turkey’s southeastern town of Silopi.

Iraqi Chief of General Staff Osman Ganimi thanked Turkish military officers and said: "We will be stronger as long as we stand together,” according to Anadolu Agency.

Al-Abadi’s Tuesday announcement may relieve the tension between Kurdistan and Baghdad as "it sends a reassuring message that the Kurdish people were not targeted by punitive measures taken by Baghdad” in the past few weeks.

"Federal security forces have redeployed in all the disputed areas,” Al-Abadi told reporters at his weekly press conference.

"Soon we will be able to pay the salaries of the Peshmerga as well as the employees of the Kurdistan region,” he added.

Tens of thousands of federal troops have been repositioned along the region’s 2003 border, only a few kilometers from Irbil.

Both federal and military Kurdish sources were involved in negotiations in Mosul last week between Baghdad and Kurdistan. The sources said the two sides had agreed that the recaptured areas would be run by authorized local councils.

The command and control of the troops deployed there would belong exclusively to the counterterrorism squad troops and the Iraqi Army in the area. They will replace the eight brigades of the Border Guards deployed to the Turkey-Iraq border and the Syria-Iraq border, handing over the border crossings to federal authorities and exclusively deploying federal Iraqi forces on the international border between the Kurdish region, Turkey, and Iran.

"The Kurds accepted all these conditions as they were afraid that the federal troops would go into Irbil and take control of it,” a senior military commander involved in the talks told Arab News.

"It was an almost unilateral surrender agreement,” the commander said.

The joint military committee that started its work last week has not faced any trouble, and the procedures for handing over the disputed areas and the border crossings have gone smoothly over the past two days.

"The procedures are still going on smoothly, but the border crossings have not yet been handed over to federal authorities,” Gayath Al-Suraji, a senior Kurdish leader familiar with the work of the military committee, told Arab News.

"Both border crossings, Fiesh Khabur and Ibrahim Al-Khaleel, will be handed over to the federal authorities within a maximum of 48 or 72 hours,” Al-Suraji said.

Al-Suraji said that both sides had agreed on jointly controlling eight Kurdish majority areas in Nineveh including Faydah, Qoosh, Shiekhan, Khazer, Maqloup and Mahmoudiya towns; the ultimate control in these areas will be with the federal government.

"The main role will be for the federal government and there are no arguments over this,” Al-Suraji said.

"But ground control will be a joint responsibility of federal forces and Kurdish troops.”