Baghdad refutes troops pullout reports near Kirkuk

Shafaq News- Kirkuk

Iraq’s army is redeploying forces and conducting military maneuvers between Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu, a security source told Shafaq News on Thursday, while the Defense Ministry denied reports of a major troop withdrawal from the area.

According to Major General Yahya Rasool, spokesman for the Defense Ministry, the movements involved rotating some units, with additional forces sent to new positions along the Kirkuk-Tuz Khurmatu route.

Kirkuk, home to Kurdish, Arab, and Turkmen communities, has long been at the center of territorial disputes between Baghdad and Erbil. Article 140 of Iraq's post-2003 Constitution established a process to address demographic changes carried out under Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime and determine the status of Kirkuk and other disputed territories, but the process has never been completed. Peshmerga took control of Kirkuk during the ISIS offensive in 2014 before Iraqi forces reasserted control in October 2017.

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