Baghdad [Iraq], September 4: Calm returned to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Sunday, a day after deadly protests broke out in the multi-ethnic area.
The unrest began in Kirkuk, around 250km north of Baghdad, after the central government announced a plan to evacuate an army facility in the city and hand it over to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), Iraqi media reported.
The plan prompted Arab and Turkmen protesters to stage a sit-in near the army building and block a main road linking Kirkuk and Erbil, the capital of Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan. Kurdish residents in Kirkuk, meanwhile, held a counter-protest, expressed support for a KDP return to the city, and accused Arabs of silencing them, Kurdish news website Rudaw reported.
The protests saw gunfire and the torching of tyres. Four people were killed and 15 others injured in the violence, Rudaw quoted a Kirkuk police spokesman as saying.
However, an Iraqi army spokesman said only one civilian was killed and an unspecified number of others injured.
Security forces imposed a brief curfew in the province of the same name. The curfew was lifted on Sunday, Iraqi media said. Amid the protests, the government decided to postpone the evacuation of the army's Joint Operations Command headquarters in the city, according to Kirkuk Governor Rakan al-Jabouri.
He said the postponement was made following a phone call with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani.
The protesters then decided to end their sit-in and reopen the road, the official added.
The KDP shut down its offices in Kirkuk after Iraqi forces retook control of the province in October 2017. Kurdistan authorities had earlier angered Baghdad by unilaterally holding a failed independence referendum in its territory and in disputed areas including Kirkuk. In reaction to the vote, Baghdad imposed sanctions on Kurdistan, including a ban on international flights to and from the territory.
The ban was later lifted as relations improved between Baghdad and Kurdistan.
The Kurds had taken control of Kirkuk and other disputed territories in the summer of 2014 when the Islamic State extremist militia overran northern and central Iraq.
Source: Qatar Tribune