Kurdish protesters staged a demonstration outside the Iraqi embassy in London as the country\u2019s military continued its assault on the Kurdish city of Kirkuk in the north of Iraq. <\/p>\n
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Protesters gathered outside the embassy on Monday afternoon as the Iraqi military closed in on the oil-rich region. In a video posted on social media, one protester can be seen hurling an object through a window.<\/p>\n
In another, a number of protesters can be seen kicking a door of the building, trying in vain to gain access.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s military action saw troops take the city under Iraqi control in a matter of mere hours. Soldiers raised the Iraqi flag over key buildings in the city, following orders by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that the flag be hoisted over Kirkuk and other areas under Kurdish control.<\/p>\n
Kurdish Peshmerga forces have said that the move into Kirkuk represents \u201ca flagrant declaration of war\u201d<\/em> and vowed that Iraq will pay a \u201cheavy price.\u201d<\/em> They further described Baghdad\u2019s assault as \u201cretaliation against the right of the people to vote on their fate,\u201d<\/em> in reference to last month\u2019s referendum on Kurdistan independence.<\/p>\nThe Iraqi PM earlier said the operation was aimed at protecting the unity of Iraq following Kurdistan\u2019s independence vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is my constitutional duty to work for the benefit of the citizens and to protect our national unity that came under threat of fragmentation as a result of the referendum that was organized by the Kurdish region,\u201d<\/em> al-Abadi said in a statement.<\/p>\nKirkuk is an oil-rich province claimed by both the Kurds and the Iraqi central government. It is thought to have a Kurdish majority, but its provincial capital has large Arab and Turkmen populations.<\/p>\n
Peshmerga forces took control of much of the area in 2014, when Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS\/ISIL) swept through most of northern Iraq. \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Via RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Published time: 16 Oct, 2017 21:11 Kurdish protesters staged a demonstration outside the Iraqi embassy in London as the country\u2019s military continued its assault on the Kurdish city of Kirkuk in the north of Iraq. Protesters gathered outside the embassy on Monday afternoon as the Iraqi military closed in on the oil-rich region. In a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":330766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-330765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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