Tag Archives: Tensions

Iran’s Guards flex muscle in Middle East despite Trump warning

FILE PHOTO: Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards march during a military parade to commemorate the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war in Tehran September 22, 2007. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl/File Photo

By Babak Dehghanpisheh

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A week after U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a blistering speech about Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the most powerful military and economic force in the Islamic Republic has shown it has no intention of curbing its activities in the Middle East.

In defiance of other world powers, Trump chose in a speech last Friday not to certify that Tehran is complying with a pact to curb Iran’s nuclear work and singled out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), accusing Tehran of destabilizing the region.

A senior IRGC commander said after the speech Trump was “acting crazy” and was following U.S. strategy of increasing “the shadow of war in the region”.

Iran’s Shi’ite militia proxies have made formidable military gains in recent months in Syria as well as Iraq, stretching from northern Iraq to a string of smaller cities and this week, after the Trump speech, re-captured the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

“In the short-run clearly Trump has increased the power and aggressiveness of the IRGC,” said Abbas Milani, the director of the Iranian Studies program at Stanford University.

“The IRGC can’t back down from a street fight. Their domestic and regional prestige is predicated on the fact that they fight a good fight and they don’t back down.”

The day after Trump spoke, the head of the Guards’ al Quds overseas operations, Major General Qassem Soleimani, traveled to Iraq’s Kurdistan region. He held talks about the escalating crisis between Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi government after a Kurdish independence referendum.

The niece of the late Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, Alaa Talabani, told the al Hadath TV channel that Soleimani met with members of her family on Saturday. He had come to pay respects to Jalal, a former Iraqi president and founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party who died this month.

Other Iraqi and Kurdish officials told Reuters Soleimani held meetings with Kurdish leaders to persuade them to retreat from Kirkuk ahead of the Iraqi army push into the city.

“I don’t deny that Mr. Qassem Soleimani gave us the advice to find a solution to Kirkuk,” she said. “He said Kirkuk should return to the (Iraqi) law and constitution and to have an agreement about Kirkuk and give up the intransigence about the referendum which was a decision not thought out.”

LIGHTNING ASSAULT

Within days, Iran’s mostly Shi’ite allies in Baghdad launched a lightning assault, pushing Kurdish fighters out of disputed territories such as Kirkuk and consequently strengthening Iran’s hand in Iraq.

Commanders of the Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga, have accused Iran of orchestrating the Shi’ite-led Iraqi central government’s push into areas under their control, a charge senior Iranian officials have denied.

A video posted by the Kurdish Rudaw channel online on Wednesday showed an Iraqi Shi’ite militiaman loyal to Iran hanging a picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the Kirkuk governorate office.

Iran, which has a large Kurdish minority, has reason to be wary of Iraqi Kurdish independence. It fears it might encourage its own Kurds, who have also pushed for separatism.

After the independence vote in Iraqi Kurdistan on September 25, videos posted online showed hundreds of people celebrating in the streets in the Kurdish areas of Iran.

FRONT-LINE PLAYER

Regional analysts say the emergence of Iran in Iraq, Syria, Kurdistan and Lebanon, where it wields influence through its allied Shi’ite Lebanese Hezbollah militia, means Tehran has become a front-line player in the region which Washington could not afford to ignore.

“Trump’s stupidity should not distract us from America’s deceitfulness … If the U.S. tears up the (nuclear) deal, we will shred it,” said Khamenei. “Americans are angry because the Islamic Republic of Iran has managed to thwart their plots in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and other countries in the region.”

Speaking after Trump’s speech, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the Guards’ aerospace division, said: “From the start of the Islamic revolution … (presidents) have increased the shadow of war in the region …

“Dear brothers and sisters today Trump is acting crazy to gain concessions through this method.”

The ramping up of tension could put the two countries on a collision course in the Gulf where clashes have only been narrowly avoided in recent months.

Small boats from the Revolutionary Guards’ navy veered close to U.S. naval vessels in the Gulf at least twice this year, prompting the U.S. military to fire warning shots and flares.

In August, an unarmed Iranian drone came within 100 feet (31 meters) of a U.S. Navy warplane, risking a crash, according to a U.S. official.

Some recent naval showdowns between Iran and the United States took place near the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway where up to 30 percent of global oil exports pass annually.

During the presidential campaign last September, Trump vowed that any Iranian vessels that harassed the U.S. Navy in the Gulf would be “shot out of the water”.

POTENTIAL FLASHPOINT

The Guards could also target U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria through tens of thousands of loyal Shi’ite militia fighters without directly acknowledging a role in any attacks.

“The IRGC can claim ignorance of Shi’ite militia attacks against the U.S. military,” said Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has done extensive research on the Guards.

In early October, an American soldier was killed in Iraq by an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, a type of roadside bomb which was often used by Iran’s Shi’ite militia proxies in Iraq, according to the U.S. military.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen it used in this area,” U.S. Army Colonel Ryan Dillon, a coalition spokesman, said. Dillon said the U.S. military has not yet concluded who carried out the attack.

Dozens of American soldiers in Iraq were killed and injured by EFPs used by militia groups linked to Iran after the 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. forces, according to the U.S. military.

Asked about the threat posed by Shi’ite militias allied with Iran in Iraq and Syria, particularly after Trump’s speech, Dillon said: “We’re always assessing the threats no matter where they come from. During certain announcements or certain dates or when certain events happen, we make proper adjustments.”

Trump’s new plan, observers say, will also weaken a group that had made progress in curbing the Guards’ political and economic ambitions in recent years: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the pragmatist politicians in his cabinet.

Since becoming president in 2013, Rouhani and members of his cabinet repeatedly pushed back against the Guards’ economic influence and involvement in political matters.

Now, Rouhani’s push against the Guards has been tempered because of the hardening in Trump’s approach to Tehran, regional observers said. “What this has done is that even those who were critics are now defending the Revolutionary Guards,” said Nasser Hadian-Jazy, a political science professor at Tehran University.

(Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh and additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Erbil, editing by Nick Tattersall and Peter Millership)

Iraqi forces complete Kirkuk province takeover after clashes with Kurds

A cyclist gestures at Iraqi security forces, on a street of Kirkuk, Iraq October 19, 2017. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed - RC1433BB18F0

By Maher Chmaytelli and Raya Jalabi

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi forces on Friday took control of the last district in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk still in the hands of Kurdish Peshmerga fighters following a three-hour battle, security sources said.

The district of Altun Kupri, or Perde in Kurdish, lies on the road between the city of Kirkuk – which fell to Iraqi forces on Monday – and Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq that voted in a referendum last month to secede from Iraq against Baghdad’s wishes.

A force made up of U.S-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service units, Federal Police and Iranian-backed fighters known as Popular Mobilisation began their advance on Altun Kupri at 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), said an Iraqi military spokesman.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew from the town, located on the Zab river, after battling the advancing Iraqi troops with machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, Iraqi security sources said. Neither side gave information about casualties.

The Iraqi central government forces have advanced into Kirkuk province largely unopposed as most Peshmerga forces withdrew without a fight.

The government advance has transformed the balance of power in northern Iraq and is likely to scuttle the independence aspirations of the Kurds, who voted overwhelmingly on Sept. 25 to secede from Iraq and take the oil fields of Kirkuk with them.

The fighting at Altun Kupri marked only the second instance of significant violent resistance by the Kurds in Kirkuk province. Dozens were killed or wounded in the previous clash on Monday, the first night of the government advance.

The U.S. State Department said it was concerned by reports of violent clashes around Altun Kupri.

“In order to avoid any misunderstandings or further clashes, we urge the central government to calm the situation by limiting federal forces’ movements in disputed areas to only those coordinated with the Kurdistan Regional Government,” it said in a statement.

The State Department made clear that even though federal authority was reasserted over “disputed areas”, that in no way changes their status – “they remain disputed until their status is resolved in accordance with the Iraqi resolution” in what appeared to be a nod to the Kurds and their assertion that they have a stake in these territories.

Altun Kupri is the last town in Kirkuk province on the road to Erbil, lying just outside the border of the autonomous region established after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Iraqi forces are seeking to reestablish Baghdad’s authority over territory which the Kurdish forces occupied outside the official boundaries of their autonomous region, mostly seized since 2014 in the course of the war on Islamic State militants.

Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on Friday for the state to protect Kurds in northern Iraq, a rare political intervention by a figure whose words have the force of law for most of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority.

Sistani’s call, issued at the Friday prayer in the holy Shi’ite city of Kerbala by one of his representatives, came amid reports of abuses against Kurds in areas evacuated by the Kurdish Peshmerga including Kirkuk, Tuz Khormato and Khanaqin.

ACCUSATIONS

Kurdish officials said tens of thousands of Kurds fled Kirkuk and Tuz to the two main cities of the Kurdish autonomous region, Erbil and Sulaimaniya.

Iraq’s post-Saddam constitution allows the Kurds self rule in three mountainous northern provinces and guarantees them a fixed percentage of Iraq’s total oil income, an arrangement that saw them prosper while the rest of the country was at war.

Although Kirkuk is outside the autonomous region, many Kurds consider it the heart of their historic homeland and its oil to be their birthright. Its loss makes their quest for independence appear remote, since it would leave them with only about half the oil revenue they had sought to claim for themselves.

Kurdish Peshmerga moved into Kirkuk without a fight in 2014, taking over positions left by the Iraqi army as it fled in the face of Islamic State militants.

Iraqi and Kurdish forces traded accusations of using weapons that Western powers had originally given them to fight Islamic State.

“Iraqi forces use U.S. Humvees, tanks in latest offensive against Peshmerga,” tweeted Hemin Hawrami, KRG President Masud Barzani’s assistant.

“Today, Popular Mobilisation attacked us with American weaponry. What is this agreement between the Americans and the Iranians?” said Harem Shukur, a Peshmerga fighter outside Altun Kupri. “The Americans sold us to Iran,” he added, echoing widespread bitterness among Kurds who think the United States did not honor friendly ties built over several decades.

An Iraqi military spokesman accused the Peshmerga of using rockets supplied by Germany.

Germany said it hoped to resume its mission training Kurdish Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq on Sunday, provided the conflict did not worsen. Berlin suspended it last week as tensions mounted.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Baghdad and Mustafa Mahmoud in Kirkuk; Eric Walsh in Washington; Editing by Andrew Heavens and James Dalgleish)

Israel says it will intensify response to Syrian fire

Israel says it will intensify response to Syrian fire

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Five projectiles from Syria set off air raid sirens in Israeli towns on Saturday, prompting the Israeli military to say it would step up its response to stray fire from the Syrian war that has repeatedly spilled over the border.

The projectiles crossed into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the military said it targeted three Syrian artillery guns in response. No damage or injuries were reported in Israel.

The Syrian military said it came under attack in Quneitra province, which sits near the Golan Heights territory that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Middle East War.

“The Israeli enemy assaulted one of our military positions this morning, which led to material damages,” it said.

During Syria’s more than six-year-old conflict, Israel has returned fire across the border, including stray shells from fighting among Syrian combatants.

The Israeli military statement suggested it may start escalating such retaliations. “Whether errant fire or not, any future occurrences will force the Israel Defense Forces to intensify its response,” it said.

Israel “holds the Syrian regime responsible and won’t tolerate any attempt to breach Israeli sovereignty,” it added.

Syria’s foreign ministry warned of “the grave consequences of such repeated aggressive acts” which it called a flagrant violation in a letter to the United Nations, state media said. The Syrian military said it held Israel responsible.

Israel has also carried out targeted air strikes in Syria during the war, alarmed by the expanding influence of Iran, the Syrian government’s ally. The Israeli air force says it has struck arms convoys of the Syrian military and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah nearly 100 times in recent years.

Iran’s military chief warned Israel against breaching Syria’s airspace and territory on a visit to Damascus this week. The general signed an agreement with his Syrian counterpart to further boost military cooperation, Iranian state news agency IRNA said on Saturday.

Rebel factions fighting the Damascus government in the multi-sided war hold swathes of Quneitra, while the army and allied militias control another part of the province.

Both warring Syrian sides accused each other of prompting the Israeli attack on Saturday.

The army said militants in nearby territory fired mortar rounds into the Golan Heights. A rebel official in Quneitra said pro-government fighters had been shelling insurgent-held parts of the province, when some of the shells fell on the Golan Heights.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem and Ellen Francis in Beirut, Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Editing by Stephen Powell)

Netanyahu lobbies world powers to stem Iraqi Kurd setbacks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem October 15, 2017. REUTERS/Abir Sultan/Pool

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is lobbying world powers to prevent further setbacks to Iraqi Kurds as they lose ground to Baghdad’s army, Israeli officials say.

Israel has been the only major power to endorse statehood for the Kurds, partly, say analysts, because it sees the ethnic group – whose population is split among Iraq, Turkey, Syria and Iran – as a buffer against shared adversaries.

Iraqi armed forces retook the oil-rich Kirkuk region this week, following a Sept. 25 referendum on Kurdish independence that was rejected by Baghdad, delivering a blow to the Kurds’ statehood quest.

Israeli officials said Netanyahu raised the Iraqi Kurds’ plight in phone calls with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last week and with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.

It has also come up in his contacts with France and the Israeli national security adviser, Meir Ben-Shabbat, has been discussing the matter with Trump administration officials in Washington this week, the officials said.

A Netanyahu government official, who declined to be named, given the sensitivity of Israel-Kurdish ties, suggested Israel had security interests in Kurdistan, given its proximity to Israel’s enemies in Tehran and Damascus.

“This (territory) is a foothold. It’s a strategic place,” the official said without providing further detail. He said Israel wanted to see Iraqi Kurds provided with the means to protect themselves, adding:

“It would be best if someone gave them weaponry, and whatever else, which we cannot give, obviously.”

Israel has maintained discreet military, intelligence and business ties with Kurds since the 1960s, in the absence of open ties between their autonomous region in northern Iraq and Israel.

Netanyahu’s recent lobbying has focused on Kurdish ambitions in Iraq, where the central Baghdad government has grown closer to Israel’s foe Iran.

“The issue at present is … to prevent an attack on the Kurds, extermination of the Kurds and any harm to them, their autonomy and region, something that Turkey and Iran and internal Shi’ite and other powers in Iraq and part of the Iraqi government want,” Netanyahu’s intelligence minister, Israel Katz, told Tel Aviv radio station 102 FM on Friday.

It was not clear to what extent Netanyahu’s outreach may have been solicited by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, which shies away from public engagement with Israel, worried about further alienating Arab neighbours.

The United Nations has voiced concern at reports that civilians, mainly Kurds, were being driven out of parts of northern Iraq retaken by Iraqi forces and their houses and businesses looted and destroyed.

“The prime minister is certainly engaging the United States, Russia, Germany and France to stop the Kurds from being harmed,” Katz said.

Another Israeli official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, framed Netanyahu’s efforts as a moral imperative.

“They (Kurds) are a deeply pro-Western people who deserve support,” he said.

(Editing by Maayan Lubell and Andrew Heavens)

Turkey’s Erdogan says may shut Iraqi border any moment: Hurriyet

Turkey's Erdogan says may shut Iraqi border any moment: Hurriyet

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey may shut its border with northern Iraq “at any moment” after closing its air space to the region, Hurriyet newspaper reported on Thursday, reviving a threat first made after Kurds there voted for independence.

“We have completely closed our air space to the regional government in northern Iraq,” the paper cited Erdogan as telling reporters on his plane returning from a trip to Poland.

“Talks are continuing on what will be done regarding the land (border) … We have not shut the border gates yet but this could happen too at any moment,” he added.

Turkey announced on Monday it was closing its air space to the semi-autonomous Kurdish region and said it would work to hand control of the main border crossing into the region to the central Iraqi government.

The Habur gate is the main transit point between Turkey and Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government.

A Sept. 25 referendum, in which Kurds in northern Iraq voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence, alarmed Baghdad, Iraq’s neighbors and Western powers, all of whom feared further regional conflict could arise from the vote.

Subsequently Kurdish Peshmerga forces retreated to positions they held in northern Iraq in June 2014 in response to an Iraqi army advance into the region after the referendum, a senior Iraqi commander said on Wednesday.

Ankara, which has been battling a three-decade insurgency in its own mainly Kurdish southeast, fears an independent Kurdish state on its borders would heighten separatist tension at home.

(Reporting by Tulay Karadeniz; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Pakistan, Afghanistan in angry tangle over border fence to keep out militants

A view of the border fence outside the Kitton outpost on the border with Afghanistan in North Waziristan, Pakistan October 18, 2017. REUTERS/Caren Firouz

(This October 18 story has been refiled to fix dateline, amend headline and first paragraph)

ANGOOR ADDA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan is betting that a pair of nine-foot chain-link fences topped with barbed wire will stop incursions by Islamist militants from Afghanistan, which opposes Islamabad’s plans for a barrier along the disputed frontier.

Pakistan plans to fence up most of the 2,500 km (1,500 mile) frontier despite Kabul’s protests that the barrier would divide families and friends along the Pashtun tribal belt straddling the colonial-era Durand Line drawn up by the British in 1893.

Pakistan’s military estimates that it will need about 56 billion rupees ($532 million) for the project, while there are also plans to build 750 border forts and employ high-tech surveillance systems to prevent militants crossing.

In the rolling hills of the Angoor Adda village in South Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s restive Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), three rolls of barbed wire are sandwiched in the six-foot gap between the chain-link fences.

“(The fence) is a paradigm change. It is an epoch shift in the border control management,” said a Pakistani army officer in command of South Waziristan during a presentation to foreign media on Wednesday.

“There will not be an inch of international border (in South Waziristan) which shall not remain under our observation.”

Pakistan’s military has so far fenced off about 43 km of the frontier, starting with the most violence-prone areas in FATA, and is expected to recruit tens of thousands of new troops to man the border. It is not clear how long it will take to fence the entire boundary.

But Pakistan’s plans have also drawn criticism from across the border.

Gulab Mangal, governor of the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, told Reuters the wall will create “more hatred and resentment” between two neighbors and will do neither country any good.

“The fence will definitely create a lot of trouble for the people along the border on both sides but no wall or fence can separate these tribes,” he said.

“I urge the tribes to stand against this action.”

Pakistan has blamed Pakistani Taliban militants it says are based on Afghan soil for a spate of attacks at home over the past year, urging Kabul to eradicate “sanctuaries” for militants.

Afghanistan, in turn, accuses Islamabad of sheltering the leadership of the Afghan Taliban militants who are battling the Western-backed government in Kabul.

Both countries deny aiding militants, but relations between the two have soured in recent years. In May, the tension rose when 10 people were killed in two border villages in Baluchistan region.

The clashes occurred in so-called “divided villages”, where the Durand Line goes through the heart of the community, and where residents are now bracing for the fence to split their villages in two.

Pakistan’s previous attempts to build a fence failed about a decade ago and many doubt whether its possible to secure such a lengthy border.

But Pakistani army officials are undeterred by the scepticism and insist they will finish the job as the country’s security rests on this fence.

“By the time we are done, inshallah, we will be very sure of one thing: that nobody can cross this place,” said the Pakistani officer in charge of South Waziristan.

(Reporting by Reuters TV in South Waziristan and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Writing by Drazen Jorgic)

U.S. carrier patrols off Korean peninsula in warning to Pyongyang

U.S. carrier patrols off Korean peninsula in warning to Pyongyang

By Tim Kelly

ABOARD USS RONALD REAGAN, Sea of Japan (Reuters) – The USS Ronald Reagan, a 100,000-ton nuclear powered aircraft carrier, patrolled in waters east of the Korean peninsula on Thursday, in a show of sea and air power designed to warn off North Korea from any military action.

The U.S. Navy’s biggest warship in Asia, with a crew of 5,000 sailors, sailed around 100 miles (160.93 km), launching almost 90 F-18 Super Hornet sorties from its deck, in sight of South Korean islands.

It is conducting drills with the South Korean navy involving 40 warships deployed in a line stretching from the Yellow Sea west of the peninsula into the Sea of Japan.

“The dangerous and aggressive behavior by North Korea concerns everybody in the world,” Rear Admiral Marc Dalton, commander of the Reagan’s strike group, said in the carrier’s hangar as war planes taxied on the flight deck above.

“We have made it clear with this exercise, and many others, that we are ready to defend the Republic of Korea.”

The Reagan’s presence in the region, coupled with recent military pressure by Washington on Pyongyang, including B1-B strategic bomber flights over the Korean peninsula, comes ahead of President Donald Trump’s first official visit to Asia, set to start in Japan on Nov. 5, with South Korea to follow.

North Korea has slammed the warship gathering as a “rehearsal for war”. It comes as senior Japanese, South Korean and U.S. diplomats meet in Seoul to discuss a diplomatic way forward backed up by U.N. sanctions.

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously ratcheted up sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes since 2006. The most stringent include a ban on coal, iron ore and seafood exports that aim at halting a third of North Korea’s $3 billion of annual exports.

On Monday, Kim In Ryong, North Korea’s deputy U.N. envoy, told a U.N. General Assembly committee the Korean peninsula situation had reached a touch-and-go point and a nuclear war could break out at any moment.

A series of weapons tests by Pyongyang, including its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 and two missile launches over Japan, has stoked tension in East Asia.

A Russian who returned from a visit to Pyongyang has said the regime is preparing to test a missile it believes can reach the U.S. west coast.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said President Donald Trump had instructed him to continue diplomatic efforts to defuse tension with North Korea.

Washington has not ruled out the eventual possibility of direct talks with the North to resolve the stand-off, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

Kurds abandon territory in the face of Iraq government advance

Kurds abandon territory in the face of Iraq government advance

By Ahmed Rasheed and Mustafa Mahmoud

BAGHDAD/KIRKUK (Reuters) – The Baghdad government recaptured territory across the breadth of northern Iraq from Kurds on Tuesday, making startingly rapid gains in a sudden campaign that has shifted the balance of power in the country almost overnight.

In the second day of a lightning government advance to take back towns and countryside from forces of the Kurdish autonomous region, Kurdish troops known as Peshmerga pulled out of the long disputed Khanaqin area near the Iranian border.

Government troops took control of the last two oilfields in the vicinity of Kirkuk, a city of 1 million people that the Peshmerga abandoned the previous day in the face of the government advance. A Yazidi group allied to Baghdad also took control of the town of Sinjar.

The government advances have redrawn the map of northern Iraq, rolling back gains by the Kurds who infuriated Baghdad last month by holding a referendum on independence.

The Kurds govern three mountainous northern provinces in an autonomous region, and have also held a wide crescent of additional territory in northern Iraq, much of which they captured after helping drive out Islamic State fighters.

Prime Minister Haidar Abadi ordered his troops on Monday to raise their flag over all Kurdish-held territory outside the autonomous region itself. They achieved a swift victory in Kirkuk, reaching the centre of the city in less than a day.

The fighting in one of Iraq’s main oil-producing areas has helped return a risk premium to oil prices. After months of range-bound trading, benchmark Brent crude is now above $58 a barrel, up almost a third from its mid-year levels.

Oil officials in Baghdad said all the fields near Kirkuk were working normally on Tuesday after the last came under government control. Kirkuk is the base of Iraq’s Northern Oil Company, one of the two giant state energy firms that provide nearly all government revenue.

DILEMMA FOR WASHINGTON

The advances create a dilemma for Washington, which has armed and trained both sides in its successful campaign to drive Islamic State fighters out of Iraq.

“We don’t like the fact that they’re clashing,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’ve had for many years a very good relationship with the Kurds as you know, and we’ve also been on the side of Iraq.”

So far most of the advances appear to have come unopposed, with Kurds withdrawing before government forces move in. There have been reports of just one major clash, in the early hours of Monday on the outskirts of Kirkuk.

In Kirkuk, one of Iraq’s most diverse cities, members of the Turkmen ethnic group who have opposed Kurdish rule had celebrated on Monday, driving through the streets in convoys and firing weapons in the air.

By Tuesday, the once ubiquitous green, red and white Kurdish flag with a blazing yellow sun had vanished from the streets. U.S.-trained Iraqi special forces and local police patrolled to maintain order. Markets, shops and schools were open as normal.

Some Kurdish families who had left the city on Monday were already returning home. They said thousands of Kurdish fighters in convoys were lining up in a long queue attempting to flee Kirkuk towards the Kurdish regional capital Erbil, which clogged the road and made it difficult for civilians to leave.

For the Kurds, the loss of territory, particularly Kirkuk which Kurdish folklore views as the heart of their homeland, is a severe blow just three weeks after they voted to declare the independent state that had been their goal for decades.

“Our leaders abandoned us in the middle of nowhere. Our future is dark,” said Malla Bakhtiyar, a retired schoolteacher in Kirkuk.

He said he tried to escape on Monday but returned with his wife and sons after an Arab neighbour phoned, begging him not to leave and assuring him the city was safe.

University lecturer Salar Othman Ameen blamed the Kurdish authorities for calling the independence referendum prematurely.

“We feel broken now. The referendum was a catastrophic decision…Our Kurdish leadership was supposed to think of the consequences before moving along with independence vote. Now we have lost what we have achieved over three decades.”

The setbacks led to recriminations among the two main Kurdish political parties, which each control separate units of Peshmerga fighters. Officials in the KDP of Kurdish regional government leader Masoud Barzani accused the PUK of his longterm rival Jalal Talabani of “treason” for abandoning Kirkuk.

Talabani, who served as ceremonial Iraqi president in Baghdad from 2003-2014, died two weeks ago. His widow denied blame for the fall of Kirkuk and said her party had tried to avert the advance through contact with U.S. and Iraqi officials.

Barzani was expected to issue a statement calling on Kurdish factions to avoid “civil war”, according to Kurdish Rudaw TV.

The advances were a second major triumph for Abadi, the soft-spoken Iraqi prime minister, months after his forces recaptured Mosul from Islamic State. Abadi had faced threats from Iran-backed Shi’ite armed groups to take matters into their own hands if he did not act decisively to take on the Kurds.

“If elections were held tomorrow, I would vote with ten fingers for Abadi. He succeeded in keeping Iraq a single state,” said Adel Abdul Kareem, a Baghdad lawyer.

“When Kurdish leaders were threatening Baghdad, Abadi was always smiling,” he said. “We did not expect he was hiding a tornado behind this smile. He proved he was a smart leader, and with his wisdom he won against Masoud (Barzani) with a knockout in the second round.”

In Sinjar, home to the small Yazidi religious minority that faced genocide in 2014 when the area was captured by Islamic State fighters, a Yazidi group called Lalesh took control of the town after Kurdish Peshmerga withdrew.

“There was no violence. The Lalesh group moved after the Peshmerga pulled out,” said a resident reached by telephone.

The decision by the Kurds to hold an independence referendum had angered neighbours Turkey and Iran. Washington, friendly to the Kurds for decades, had also called on them to cancel the vote, fearing it could trigger war.

(Additional reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

North Korea warns states: Don’t join any U.S. action and you’re safe

North Korea warns states: Don't join any U.S. action and you're safe

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – North Korea warned countries at the United Nations on Monday in a statement: don’t join the United States in military action against the Asian state and you will be safe from retaliation.

The caution was contained in a copy of North Korean Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim In Ryong’s prepared remarks for a discussion on nuclear weapons by a U.N. General Assembly committee. However, Kim did not read that section out loud.

“As long as one does not take part in the U.S. military actions against the DPRK (North Korea), we have no intention to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any other country,” according to Kim’s prepared remarks.

“The entire U.S. mainland is within our firing range and if the U.S. dares to invade our sacred territory even an inch it will not escape our severe punishment in any part of the globe,” the statement read.

Tensions have soared between the United States and North Korea following a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

The U.N. Security Council has unanimously ratcheted up sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs since 2006.

North Korean Deputy U.N. Ambassador Kim did tell the U.N. General Assembly committee on Monday: “Unless the hostile policy and the nuclear threat of the U.S. is thoroughly eradicated, we will never put our nuclear weapons and ballistic rockets on the negotiation table under any circumstance.”

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Trump resists pressure to soften stance on Iran nuclear deal

Trump resists pressure to soften stance on Iran nuclear deal

By Steve Holland and John Walcott

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump finds himself under immense pressure as he considers de-certifying the international nuclear deal with Iran, a move that would ignore warnings from inside and outside his administration that to do so would risk undermining U.S. credibility.

Trump is expected to unveil a broad strategy on confronting Iran this week, likely on Friday. There was always the chance he could still have a last-minute change of heart and certify Iran’s compliance with the 2015 accord, which he has called an “embarrassment” and the “worst deal ever negotiated.”

Senior U.S. officials, European allies and prominent U.S. lawmakers have told Trump that refusing to certify the deal would leave the U.S. isolated, concede the diplomatic high ground to Tehran, and ultimately risk the unraveling of the agreement.

Signed by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, the European Union and Iran, the deal relieved sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbing its disputed nuclear program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded that Iran secretly researched a nuclear warhead until 2009, which Tehran denies. Iran has always insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and denies it has aimed to build an atomic bomb.

After Trump made clear three months ago he would not certify Iran’s compliance with the deal, his advisers moved to give him options to consider, a senior administration official said.

“They came up with a plan that protects the things they are concerned about but doesn’t recertify, which the president made clear he was not going to do. That ship has sailed,” according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said Trump has been telling foreign leaders and U.S. lawmakers that his refusal to certify the Iran deal would not blow it up.

“He’s not walking away from it. The chances of him walking away from it go down if they work with him on making it better,” the official said.

White House officials said Trump is expected to announce a broad, more confrontational policy toward Iran directed at curbing its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and financial and military support for Hezbollah and other extremist groups.

Trump has said he believes the nuclear deal is too generous toward Iran and would not stop it from trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

He has criticized the agreement’s “sunset clauses,” under which some restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program would expire over time. He also wants to toughen language on ballistic missiles and inspections. The International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran is complying with the agreement.

FILE PHOTO: Women hold anti-U.S. banners during a demonstration outside the former U.S. embassy in Tehran November 4, 2015. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/TIMA/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: Women hold anti-U.S. banners during a demonstration outside the former U.S. embassy in Tehran November 4, 2015. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi/TIMA/File Photo

NO RENEGOTIATION

European officials have categorically ruled out renegotiating the deal, but have said they share Trump’s concerns over Iran’s destabilizing influence in the Middle East.

Several diplomats have said Europe would be ready to discuss sanctioning Iran’s ballistic missile tests and forming a strategy to curb Iran’s influence in the region.

Officials have also said there could be room to open a new negotiation for what happens once some of the core terms of the deal begin expiring in 2025, although there is no reason to believe Iran would be ready to enter in such a negotiation. Iran has said it may exit the deal if the U.S. withdraws.

De-certifying would not withdraw the United States from the deal but it would give the U.S. Congress 60 days to decide whether to reimpose the sanctions on Tehran that were suspended under the agreement.

One U.S. official involved in administration said that declining to certify Iran’s compliance would probably leave all of the parties to the deal on one side and the United States on the other.

“That means that while the French and others are also interested in curbing Iran’s destabilizing activities, they may be less likely to follow (the U.S.) lead at the risk of the agreement blowing up,” the official said.

British Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron both spoke to Trump this week to express their concerns about the potential decision not to recertify the Iran deal.

“If the feeling is that the United States no longer supports the agreement, then the political reality is that the agreement will be in serious jeopardy and its implementation will be very difficult,” a senior French diplomat said.

Two other U.S. officials, who also requested anonymity, said Trump’s bellicose rhetoric on a number of fronts is troubling both many of his own aides and some of America’s closest allies, a few of whom have asked U.S. officials privately if Trump’s real objective is attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

One of the officials said that like the heated rhetoric with North Korea on its nuclear program, the Iran discussion has vexed White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “who have tried to advise the President that there are significant risks in the course he’d prefer to pursue.”

“At the end of the day, though, everyone recognizes that he’s the decider.”

Trump allies who oppose the deal have watched the president closely to see if he might buckle under pressure.

“He’s not going to re-certify,” said Sebastian Gorka, a former Trump national security aide. “I’m not worried. His gut instinct is absolutely right.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland and John Walcott; additional reporting by John Irish in Paris; Editing by Caren Bohan, Yara Bayoumy and Grant McCool)