Kurds block Iraqi forces' access to Kirkuk's oil fields, airbase

BAGHDAD – Kurdish Peshmerga fighters rejected a warning from an Iraqi paramilitary force to withdraw from a strategic junction south of Kirkuk, which controls the access to some of the region's main oilfields, a Kurdish security official said on Sunday.

Meanwhile, an Iranian military official arrived in Iraq's Kurdistan region for talks on the growing crisis between the Kurdish authorities and the Iraqi government following last month's Kurdish independence referendum.

Major General Qassem Soleimani is the commander of foreign operations for Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards who provide training and guns to Iraqi paramilitary groups backing the Shiite-led government in Baghdad, known as Popular Mobilization.