Iraq urges Kurdish forces pullout from disputed areas

The Iraqi Interior Ministry on Thursday called on the regional government of Kurdistan to withdraw forces from two disputed areas, ahead of the proposed visit of Iraq's premier to Kurdistan region next week. "The Interior Ministry calls for the brothers in charge of the security file in Kurdistan region to withdraw Peshmerga forces, the Kurdish security guards, from the cities of Sulaiman Bek and Tuz-Khurmato," the ministry said in statement posted on its website. The statement said that the two areas "are located under the authority of the central government and within the range of its security responsibilities, as stated in the Iraqi constitution." The two ethnically mix cities are part of the disputed areas between the Kurds and both Arabs and Turkomans, which the Kurds want to incorporate into their domain. The Kurds move is fiercely opposed by Baghdad government. Earlier, Ali al-Mousawi, media advisor of premier office, told reporters in Baghdad that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will pay a visit to the Kurdish region next week in response to an invitation from the President of the regional Kurdish government Masoud Barzani. Mousawi said that the Iraqi cabinet will hold its weekly meeting in Kurdistan's capital city of Erbil, some 350 km north of Baghdad. Maliki's visit aimed at breaking the ice between the central and regional governments after months of political deadlocks and tensions over distribution of oil wealth and control of disputed areas in the provinces of Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salahudin and Diyala which are located on the edges of the Kurdish region in northern Iraq. Observers see that the ministry's statement could be a political maneuver by Maliki's government to raise the roof of his demands before meetings with the Kurdish leaders.