What happened? On 16 -10- 2017, the Iraqi federal government launched an operation to restore Iraqi sovereignty over the disputed territories, including Kirkuk and its oil fields. This reversed the situation in place since the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of an onslaught by the Islamic State in June 2014.
Why did it happen? The action was triggered by the independence referendum staged by the Kurdistan Regional Government on 25 September, in which Kurds overwhelmingly cast “yes” votes.
Why does it matter? These actions have broken what remained of the tense relationship between Baghdad and Erbil. Yet the only sensible way forward is a return to UN-led negotiations, supported by the U.S., EU, Iran and Turkey.
What should be done? Future talks should centre on the issues that gave rise to the current crisis in the first place: the unresolved status of the disputed territories, and the question of oil revenue-sharing.
I. Overview
In the early hours of 16 October, Iraqi federal forces launched a drive toward Kirkuk city that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said was aimed at retaking oil fields, an air base, the airport and federal installations lost in June 2014 when the Iraqi army collapsed in the face of an onslaught by the Islamic State (ISIS). The military move, which met with relatively little resistance, reportedly was enabled by a deal between the Abadi government and a faction of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
The PUK mostly withdrew, while forces of the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish region, who staged a popular referendum on Kurdish independence in late September, fled. In the end, federal forces established control not only of the oil fields, but of an even more emotional prize, the city of Kirkuk.
At the root of the conflict in Kirkuk – and potentially in other parts of the disputed territories as well – is the failure to resolve the status of these areas through negotiations since 2003. A constitutional article (Article 140) that prescribed a process by which to do so never was implemented. This triggered great frustration with Kurdish leaders, who long had laid claim to these areas. Their acquisition of Kirkuk and its oil fields and other strategic installations in June 2014 was a windfall. They filled the security vacuum and continued to entrench their positions for the next three years. Barzani repeatedly declared that these areas were now “Kurdistani” and would stay in Kurdish hands.
The federal government considered the Kurdish parties’ control as unilateral and temporary, to be reversed – by undetermined means – once ISIS was defeated. That opportunity arrived in early October with the rapid defeat of ISIS in Hawija, a district town in Kirkuk governorate, which brought battle-ready Iraqi troops closer to Kirkuk city and the oil fields. It was triggered by Abadi’s need to reassert Iraqi sovereignty over these areas in the wake of the Kurdish independence referendum, which took place not only in the Kurdish region but also in Kurdish-controlled parts of the disputed territories such as Kirkuk. And it was enabled by intense inter-Kurdish rivalries between the KDP and PUK, as well as an intra-KDP power struggle between Masoud Barzani’s son, in charge of the region’s security file, and his nephew, its prime minister.[1]
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