Witnesses and local officials say that demonstrations in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk over the handover of a key facility from federal to local Kurdish authorities has turned violent and one protester was killed and several were injured.
Last week, a group of Arabs from Kirkuk closed the Kirkuk-to-Erbil highway in protest over the re-opening of the KDP headquarter in Kirkuk. On Saturday, Kurdish residents demanded the reopening of the highway, sparking tensions between the protesters and security forces.
In a statement, Masoud Barzani, the former president of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, decried the violence directed against Kurdish protesters and expressed disappointment with security forces. In the Kurdish neighborhood of Rahimawa in Kirkuk, protesters blocked roads by setting tires ablaze. Iraqi security forces were deployed to the area to maintain order.
Hasan Turan, the leader of the Turkmen Front movement, requested that al-Sudani visit Kirkuk due to the prevailing security tensions.“Kirkuk was and still is a symbol of Iraqi brotherhood and a gathering of all sects, and we will not allow its image to be distorted,” he said.
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