The Associated Press

BAGHDAD (AP) Kurdish fighters pulled out of disputed areas across northern and
eastern Iraq on Tuesday, one day after giving up the vital oil city of Kirkuk a
dramatic redeployment of forces that opened the way for government troops to move
into energy-rich and other strategically important territories.

The vastly outnumbered Kurdish forces, known as the peshmerga, appeared to have
bowed to demands from the central government that they hand over areas outside the
Kurds autonomous region, including territory seized from the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL) group in recent years.

The evacuations exposed a Kurdish leadership in turmoil in the wake of last months
vote for independence as Iraqs central government shores up its hand for
negotiations over resource-sharing with the countrys self-ruling minority.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi acknowledged the power shift, saying Iraqi
forces took over the disputed areas from the Kurds with barely a shot fired.

I call on our citizens to celebrate this day, because we have been united, Abadi
said, calling the independence vote a thing of the past as he offered to begin
talks with the Kurdish regional government.

The developments followed weeks of political crisis precipitated by the Kurdish

leaderships decision to hold the referendum for independence in territories beyond
the boundaries of its autonomous region in northeast Iraq.

The Iraqi government, as well as Turkey and Iran, which border the land-locked
Kurdish region, rejected the vote. The United States also opposed the vote, saying
it was a distraction on the war against ISIL.

If the mood in Baghdad was triumphant, it was acrimonious in the Kurdish capital of
Irbil, reflecting the sense among many Kurds that they had been betrayed and by
their own leaders.

Kirkuk was sold out, everyone ran away, said Amir Aydn, a 28-year-old Kirkuk
resident as he returned to the city after fleeing the day before.

A hospital in the nearby Kurdish city of Suleimaniyah said it had received the
bodies of 25 peshmerga fighters killed in clashes over Kirkuk. The claim could not
be independently verified.

Kurdish President Masoud Barzani said the evacuation of Kirkuk was forced by
certain people in a certain party, a swipe at his political opponents in the
Patriotic Union of Kuridstan, known as the PUK. Barzani heads the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, or KDP.

The General Command of the peshmerga, nominally in Barzanis hands, went even
further, accusing PUK officials of a great and historic treason against
Kurdistan.

Their accusations were grounded in reports that peshmerga divisions loyal to the
PUK had abandoned their positions as the Iraqi government forces advanced, though
the KDP-aligned divisions also withdrew, in Kirkuk and in other parts of the
country.

The KDP leadership also condemned the PUK for meeting with Qassem Soleimani, a
commander of Irans Revolutionary Guards who advises Iraqs predominantly Shiite
Popular Mobilization Front militias, in the buildup to this weeks territorial
withdrawal. The Shiite militias are an integral part of Iraqs military apparatus
but are viewed with considerable distrust by the Kurds, who consider them a symbol
of Tehrans influence in Iraq.