Tension flares in flashpoint town as Kurdish-Iraqi crisis escalates

BAGHDAD – Tension flared on Saturday in the ethnically mixed Iraqi town of Tuz Khurmatu after a clash between Kurdish and Shiite Turkmen political parties divided over the independence of the Kurdistan region, security sources said on Saturday.

A dozen Kurdish families were displaced from the predominantly Turkmen district of Askari to Kurdish neighborhoods of the town, after the two-hour clash in the early hours of the morning, the sources said.

The exchange of mainly automatic gunfire left no casualties, they said. It pitted members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan against Turkmen loyal to Shiite political groups ruling Iraq.

Tuz is located 75 kms (47 miles) south of the multi-ethnic oil-rich city of Kirkuk, held by the Kurdish Peshmerga forces and claimed by the central government of Baghdad.