Iraqi forces, Kurdish Peshmerga reach ceasefire: US-led coalition

The US-led coalition on Friday confirmed that a ceasefire has been reached between the Iraqi and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces.

"What we know is that there is a ceasefire," Colonel Ryan Dillon, spokesperson for the international coalition, told Kurdish Rudaw television.

Dillon said the coalition wanted the ceasefire to be extended so that the two sides would "refocus" on the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq, the Kurdish portal said.

"We certainly want that (ceasefire) to extend, to not be just a cease-fire for a short period of time, but that it extends to no more fighting," Dillon said.

The coalition is "encouraging dialogue, through trying to get the right people from both Peshmerga and the Iraqi security forces. So that something could be worked out diplomatically", Dillon added.

Dillon's comments came a day after heavy clashes between the two sides on Thursday as the government troops advanced to seize more disputed areas outside the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan.

The two sides also traded mortar and artillery barrage in Altun Kupri, some 40 km north of the city of Kirkuk.

On October 16, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi 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 Baghdad.

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.

--IANS

ahm/mr