CAIRO, September 3. /TASS/. The death toll in clashes erupted during protests in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, has risen to three, 16 more people were injured the Al Arabiya TV channel reported.
Earlier there were reports about two dead and ten injured among the Kurdish protesters.
According to the TV channel, the forces of the Iraqi army are being pulled into the province of Kirkuk to control the security situation.
Earlier, Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia' Al-Sudani, who is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, ordered the formation of an investigative committee to clarify the circumstances of the death of the protesters. According to Iraqi army spokesman Yahya Rasool on his Facebook page (banned in Russia, owned by Meta Corporation, recognized as extremist in Russia), the perpetrators will be held accountable and will be punished fairly. Al-Sudani also ordered to look into the issue of introducing a ban on carrying weapons in Kirkuk. The Prime Minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, Masrour Barzani, for his part, called on the central authorities of Iraq to take control of the situation in the northern province of Kirkuk and protect the lives of citizens and protesters.
On Saturday, representatives of the Kurdish community came out to protest in the city of Kirkuk, demanding the opening of the main road Erbil-Kirkuk blocked a few days ago by forces of the Iraq’s Shia Hashd al-Shaabi militia.
According to the Rudaw TV channel, the Kurdish protesters went to the place of deployment of militia supporters. Iraqi security forces intervened to prevent clashes between the two sides and opened fire on the protesters. A curfew has been imposed in the province amid tensions.
The road between Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and the city of Kirkuk was blocked on August 27 because of a sit-in by Arab parties following word that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) was about to reopen its offices in Kirkuk province in preparation for the upcoming provincial elections.
Kirkuk is a historically disputed province between Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan with an administrative center of Kirkuk, inhabited by Kurds and Arabs. The situation around this province, which is not part of Iraqi Kurdistan, escalated sharply after the independence referendum held in the autonomy in 2017, to which Kirkuk unilaterally joined. Iraq’s Shia Hashd al-Shaabi militia then took control of the city, and the KDP stopped political work.