Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi says there could be a “civil war” over the Kurdish-administered city of Kirkuk if talks over Kurdish independence are left unresolved.
Allawi, in an interview with The Associated Press on Monday, said he urged Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, as well as Iraq’s central government and its Iranian-backed militia forces, to show restraint and resolve in disputes over the oil-rich city.
Kirkuk was included in a controversial Kurdish referendum on support for independence in September.
The ethnically-mixed city has been administered by Kurdish forces since 2014, even though it falls outside the autonomous Kurdish region in northeast Iraq.
Allawi said Kirkuk could be the “flashpoint” that ignites conflict in northern Iraq.
Allawi said he opposes Kurdish independence.
Iraq’s central government has unleashed a legal barrage against Kurdish officials and sought to seize key businesses in a fresh bid to tighten the screws over the disputed independence referendum.
The latest moves come exactly two weeks after an overwhelming majority of voters in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region backed independence in the non-binding ballot referendum as illegal by Baghdad.
The central authorities have already severed ties between Kurdistan and the outside world by cutting international air links to the region, while Turkey and Iran have threatened to close their borders to oil exports.
Now, in a new round of attempts to ratchet up pressure, Baghdad’s National Security Council announced that a probe has been launched into Kurdistan’s lucrative oil revenues and officials in the region who might have illegally monopolized the market.
“The corrupt will be exposed and the funds recovered,” said a statement from the council, headed by Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi.
The council also said that “a list of names” of Kurdish officials who helped organized the referendum had been compiled and “judicial measures have been taken against them,” without giving more details.
The central government — which has already demanded to take over Kurdistan’s airports and borders — is also looking to reclaim control over mobile phone companies in the region, including two of the largest providers in Iraq, the statement said.
Baghdad also once again called on Ankara and Tehran — which both opposed the referendum over fears of fueling demands from their own Kurdish communities — to close their border posts with Kurdistan and “stop all trade” with the region.
The angry dispute over the referendum — also rejected by the US — is the latest twist in the decades-long movement by Iraq’s Kurds to break away from Baghdad.
The referendum spat comes as Kurdish fighters and central government forces have continued to work together in offensives to push back the Daesh group, with Washington warning the poll could “increase instability” in the region.
The defense committee in Iraq’s Parliament demanded Kurdish security forces hand over Daesh fighters captured in a recent battle to retake Hawija.
The US-led coalition backing up the operations against Daesh has estimated that some 1,000 terrorists surrendered, mostly to the Kurdish peshmerga forces, during the seizure of the town.