国际英语资讯:Iraqi-Kurdish talks make progress despite pending points_时事

国际英语资讯:Iraqi-Kurdish talks make progress despite pending points

The Kurdish top military official did not give talk to the media after the meeting which took place in Nineveh's Operations Command inside the former presidential palaces in eastern Mosul.

The meeting came after the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi late on Friday announced 24-hour halt of movement of the Iraqi security forces to allow a joint Iraq-Kurdish military team to arrange redeployment of federal forces in the disputed areas claimed by Baghdad and the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

On Thursday, heavy clashes between the Iraqi forces and Peshmerga as the government troops advanced to seize more disputed areas, in addition to Faysh-Khabur area near the Iraqi-Syrian-Turkish border and to seize the main border crossing point of Ibrahim al-Khalil between Iraq and Turkey.

On Oct. 16, Abadi, who is also Commander-in-Chief of Iraqi forces, ordered government forces to enter the oil-rich Kirkuk province in northern Iraq to regain control of the ethnically-mixed disputed areas.

The Kurds consider the northern Kirkuk province and parts of Nineveh, Diyala and Salahudin provinces as disputed areas and want them to be incorporated into their region, a move fiercely opposed by the Arabs and Turkmens in the region as well as the Iraqi central government.

Tensions have been running high between Baghdad and the region of Kurdistan after the Kurds held a controversial referendum on the independence of the Kurdistan region and the disputed areas.