Kurdish forces withdraw to June 2014 line: Iraqi commander

A senior Iraqi military commander says Kurdish Peshmerga forces have pulled back to the positions they held in June 2014, before the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group swept through the Arab country.

According to Press TV, the commander on Wednesday said that the withdrawal came after the Kurds handed over their positions in the northwestern Nineveh Province to Iraqi troops.

Additionally on Wednesday, Iraqi forces said that they had achieved their objectives in a 48-hour operation against Kurdish forces in the disputed areas.

“Security has been restored in sectors of Kirkuk. Forces have been redeployed and have retaken control of Khanaqin and Jalawla in Diyala province, as well as Makhmur, Bashiqa, Mosul Dam, Sinjar and other areas in the Nineveh plains,” the federal government’s Joint Operations Command said.

Earlier in the day, the Iraqi military said in a statement that government forces had managed to retake control of parts of the northwestern Nineveh Province that were controlled by the Kurdish forces over the past three years.

The Nineveh areas were evacuated by Kurdish forces before the arrival of Iraqi soldiers, the statement read.

On Monday, Iraqi government forces and allied fighters entered the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew without a fight and thus Iraqi troops recaptured some neighborhoods, the Kirkuk provincial governor’s office, key military bases and several oil fields.

The last Kirkuk oil field still in Kurdish hands is the Khurmala field, south of Erbil, the main city in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region.

SS