Kirkuk has found itself at the heart of a long-running dispute between Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region and its central government that reached fever pitch after Kurdish authorities staged a non-binding independence vote in late September. The city sits on the edge of an expansive oil field that can be tapped for about a half million barrels per day. And while Iraq's oil revenues are supposed to be shared, disputes among the provinces have often held up transfers, leading parties to find leverage in holding the fields.
The city falls 32 kilometres 20 miles outside the Kurds' autonomous region. Baghdad insisted the city and its province be returned, but matters came to a head when the Kurdish authorities expanded their referendum to include Kirkuk. To Baghdad, it looked like a provocation that underscored what it sees as unchecked Kurdish expansionism.
By late afternoon, they were in control of several oil and gas facilities, the airport, and a military base. The vastly outmatched Kurdish fighters withdrew from the city en masse, and journalists were left to wander into abandoned barracks and administrative buildings.
Local police forces remained in the city at the invitation of Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi who called on civil servants to stay and serve their constituents.
He has said he wants to share administration of the city with the Kurdish authorities and called on Kurdish forces, known as the Peshmerga , to serve under the umbrella of Iraq's unified military command. The Iranian-sponsored militias are viewed with deep suspicion by Iraq's Kurds, who see them as a policy implement of Tehran that threatens demographic change. Thousands of revellers waving the Iraqi Turkmen and Iraqi national flags were celebrating the transfer of power in downtown Kirkuk by nightfall, but thousands more were fleeing the city with their belongings to the neighbouring Kurdish region, fearful of national or militia rule.
