SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A top-ranking Iraqi security delegation arrived in the City of Kirkuk on Thursday.
Iraqi media reported that the delegation is led by General Abdel Emir Yarallah, Iraq’s army’s General Staff. They are secluded to meet with Kirkuk’s security officials.
The visit aims to investigate the situation of oil-rich Kirkuk City following previous days’ tensions and unrest between ethnic Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, according to the reports.
Four Kurdish protesters were shot dead and 14 were wounded last Saturday as a result of inter-ethnic clashes in the city.
The dispute centers on a building in Kirkuk that was once the headquarters for the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) but which the Iraqi army has used a base since 2017, according to Reuters.
The central government plans to return to the building to the KDP in a show of goodwill but Arab and Turkmen opponents set up a camp outside the building last week in protest.
The violence was sparked when a group of Kurdish protesters approached the camp on Saturday.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani ordered a curfew in the city to prevent an escalation of the violence, which was lifted after 24 hours.
Kirkuk, an oil-rich province in northern Iraq along the fault lines between the Kurdish autonomous region and areas controlled by Iraq’s Shi’ite-dominated central government, has been the focus of some of the country’s worst post-Islamic State violence.
