Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani directed the concerned authorities to conduct an investigation to find out the circumstances of casualties in clashes between Kurdish residents and other Arabs and Turkmen during demonstrations in the city of Kirkuk (northern Iraq), while the Iraqi authorities decided to impose a curfew in the city, and start large-scale security operations in areas that witnessed riots.

In two phone calls on Saturday evening with KDP leader Massoud Barzani and Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani, al-Sudani discussed the situation in Kirkuk, stressing the intensification of efforts to miss the opportunity for anyone who tampered with the security of the province, and to enforce the law by the security forces.

Al-Sudani discusses the situation in Kirkuk with Kurdish leaders (Iraqi News Agency)

Curfew

Before that, al-Sudani, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, decided to impose a curfew in Kirkuk and start large-scale security operations in areas that witnessed violence that killed one person and injured 10 others.

Iraqi President Abdul Latif Jamal Rashid called on the federal government and security forces to seriously intervene to control the situation in Kirkuk province and control security and the rule of law.

Former president of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq Massoud Barzani warned that "shedding the blood of our Kurdish sons will come at a high price."

President Massoud Barzani stressed: shedding the blood of our Kurdish sons will have a heavy price pic.twitter.com/VxVRwW2JeB

— Rudaw Arabia (@rudaw_Arabic) September 2, 2023

For his part, the President of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq, Masrour Barzani, condemned what he described as the riots, which he said contradicted the principles of democracy and peaceful coexistence in the city of Kirkuk.

In a statement, Barzani called on the Iraqi Prime Minister to intervene immediately to control the situation and protect the lives of citizens and demonstrators, and called on Kurdish citizens to exercise restraint and stay away from violence, while urging Arab and Turkmen citizens in Kirkuk not to allow strangers to destabilize the city and disturb coexistence between the various components.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Pavel Talabani, also called on the Iraqi prime minister to resolve the problem in Kirkuk province, in coordination with the local government and the army and Popular Mobilization Forces in the city.

For its part, the coordination framework (which includes most of the influential Shiite parties in Iraq) stressed that the stability of Kirkuk province is "everyone's responsibility" and that escalating violence is not a solution, calling on political forces to stay away from "convulsive rhetoric".

Kurdish demonstrators set tires on fire to protest the blocking of the Erbil-Kirkuk road (Anatolia)

Details of the clashes

Kirkuk Health Director Ziad Khalaf said a Kurdish civilian was killed after being shot in the chest, without being able to identify the shooter, and pointed out that the wounded – "including a security officer – were injured by the direct collision, whether by gunshot or other materials of glass, iron or stones."

He said half of the eight wounded were Kurds and the other half were Arabs.

Video.. A Kurdish youth was injured during the night demonstrations in Kirkuk and taken to hospital by a motorcycle pic.twitter.com/Y6yAYHc9Fr

— Rudaw Arabia (@rudaw_Arabic) September 2, 2023

A group of supporters of Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) gathered on Saturday afternoon in Kirkuk's predominantly Kurdish Rahim Awa, blocking roads in the area and burning tires to protest the blocking of the Erbil-Kirkuk road.

The demonstrators demanded that the road, blocked by Arab and Turkmen protesters, be opened to hand over the Kirkuk operations headquarters building from Iraqi forces to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which had used it from 2014 to 2017.

The Iraqi forces sent security reinforcements to the area after the demonstrators approached the site of the Joint Operations Command of the Iraqi army, where they fired in the air to disperse them before reaching the site for fear of ominous clashes between the Kurds on the one hand, and the protesters in front of the building from the Arab and Turkmen components on the other.

In protest against the Baghdad government's decision to hand over the security operations command building in Kirkuk to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), demonstrators earlier blocked the Erbil-Kirkuk highway.

Kirkuk has been tense for a week and is the subject of a historic dispute between the central government in Baghdad and the authorities of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

It is worth noting that the Peshmerga forces of the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq deployed to bases vacated by the Iraqi army in Kirkuk province after ISIS took control in 2014 of large parts of northern and northeastern Iraq, where they assumed security authority in the city for three years.

However, Iraqi forces re-entered Kirkuk on October 16, 2017, after Erbil authorities organized a referendum that did not succeed in separating the Kurdistan Region from Iraq on September 25 of the same year to annex Kirkuk to the region.

After Iraqi forces entered Kirkuk, the Iraqi army evacuated the KDP building and turned it into the Kirkuk Operations Headquarters.