Iraqi-Kurd feud escalates, but U.S. hopes to defuse tensions

The Trump administration is struggling to prevent a new powder keg from exploding in Iraq, where violence between the central government in Baghdad and the nation’s Kurds in the north has displaced more than 180,000 people since the failed Kurdish independence push in September.

While the White House has had little public comment on recent clashes between the Iraqi military and Kurdish peshmerga forces, U.S. officials say they’re scrambling behind the scenes, with Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson engaging in telephone diplomacy aimed at defusing the situation.

“We are on this 24/7, and we understand very clearly the peril that’s involved here,” said one official privy to the effort to stave off a “direct military confrontation” between the two sides, which prior to September had been working together in a delicate alliance with Washington against the Islamic State terror group in northern Iraq.

“They’re both very good friends of ours,” the official said. “We’ve worked with both Baghdad and [the Kurds] pretty successfully for years, and it is something we do not want to see escalate.”

The situation was complicated by a fresh outbreak of violence Thursday in nearby southern Turkey, where there were reports of as many as 39 people killed in clashes between Turkish security forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

The PKK, which Ankara and Washington list as a terrorist organization, has waged an on-again, off-again insurgency in southeastern Turkey since the 1990s. But Thursday’s skirmishes, which occurred near the Iraq-Turkey border, sparked concerns that the current turmoil gripping the Iraqi side of the border may be spreading.

The main U.N. humanitarian office in Baghdad said Thursday that more than 183,000 civilians, mostly Kurds, were displaced by clashes between the Iraqi military and various Kurdish groups in retaliation for the September referendum on independence that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) held in northern Iraq.

The referendum passed, but triggered chaos and condemnation from Baghdad and states around the region, forcing the Iraqi Kurds into a quick retreat.

Defense Secretary James Mattis tried to paint a hopeful picture of the situation earlier this week, telling lawmakers in Washington that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has been holding “things under control” while “the Kurds sort out their political situation.”

Army Maj. Gen. James Jarrard on Tuesday played down the likelihood of further violence between Baghdad and Irbil, the KRG capital. “No Iraqis that I’ve talked to, Arabs or Kurds, want to see anymore Iraqi deaths because of fighting between Iraqis,” the two-star general told reporters at the Pentagon.

“Obviously, there’s been some turmoil and tension,” he said, before adding that the act of fighting side by side against Islamic State for nearly the past three years “has coalesced Arabs [and] Kurds, both in Iraq and Syria, to fight together and work together.”

But the official who spoke privately Thursday put it in more stark terms.

“We’ve been pushing Baghdad and the Kurds both to not allow this to become a direct military confrontation,” the official said, adding that Mr. Tillerson has had repeated phone calls with Mr. al-Abadi as well as Kurdish leaders, while U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Douglas Silliman “is working it 24/7.”

The al-Abadi government appears eager to continue pressing the fight against Iraqi Kurdistan. Tuesday saw Iraq’s central government reject a compromise offered by Kurdish leaders to suspend September’s independence referendum results in exchange for a cease-fire.

Irbil fired back on Wednesday, saying Baghdad’s decision only emphasized Mr. Abadi’s desire to rein in Iraqi Kurdistan by any means necessary.

“The [Interior] Ministry has emphasized in clear terms the need of continued, unconditional dialogue to reach a settlement. Baghdad has responded with reckless deadlines and threatens war,” Kurdish officials said in a statement.