BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Iraq’s most senior Shia cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has called on the government to protect the Kurdish population in the north amid rising tensions between Baghdad and Iraq’s secessionist Kurds.
Sistani’s call was issued at the Friday prayer in the holy city of Karbala by one of his representatives, Reuters reported.
According to Iraq’s Alforat News Agency, Sistani called the presence of the Iraqi forces in Kirkuk a victory for all Iraqis.
He also warned against any retaliatory moves, and urged Kurdish leaders to cooperate with the federal government on the basis of Iraqi law.
The cleric stated that the country’s Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmens had to move shoulder to shoulder towards resolving standing problems.
Earlier in the day, security said Iraqi forces took control of the last district in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, which was still in the hands of Kurdish Peshmerga militants following a three-hour battle.
Forces partaking in the operation to recapture Altun Kupri comprised Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service units, Shia-dominated Popular Mobilization Unites and the Federal Police.
The Peshmergas withdrew from the district after battling the advancing Iraqi troops with machineguns, mortars, and rocket propelled grenades, security sources said, according to the agency.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi court has issued an arrest warrant for the vice president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), accusing him of provocation against the Arab country’s armed forces, which managed to take over Kirkuk province earlier this week.
Baghdad’s Rusafa Investigation Court on Thursday ordered the arrest of Kosrat Rasul, who had referred to the Iraqi army and federal police as "occupation forces” in a statement he released a day earlier.
In his statement, Rasul, who is also the vice president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two main Kurdish parties alongside the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), had also criticized his group for not having resisted the entry of Iraqi forces into Kirkuk on Monday.
The court announced that it "considers these comments as provocation against the armed forces, under Article 226 of the penal code,” an offence, which can entail a prison term of up to seven years or a fine, said a judiciary spokesman for the court.
Rasul entered Kirkuk with his Peshmerga fighters on Sunday, but withdrew from the oil-rich northern city without a fight.
Tensions flared up between Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region and the central government in Baghdad after the KRG held a highly controversial plebiscite on secession.
The referendum was held on September 25 despite strong opposition from the central government in Baghdad, the international community, and Iraq's neighboring countries, especially Turkey and Iran.
Following the vote, Baghdad imposed a ban on direct international flights to the Kurdish region and called for a halt to its independent crude oil sales.