Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi released a statement on Kirkuk and claimed that the military attack was for the interests of Kirkuk’s people.

The statement said: “We tried to dissuade those in the region from holding it and not violating the Constitution and to focus on the fight against Daesh but they did not listen to our appeals and so then we demanded them to cancel the results which also went unheeded. We showed them the magnitude of the danger that will be exposed to Iraq and its people, but they preferred their personal and partisan interests to those of Iraq, with its Arab and Kurdish people and the rest of its components. They violated the constitution and the national consensus and national partnership in addition to their disregard for the unanimous international rejection of the referendum and the division of Iraq and the establishment of a state on an ethnic and racial basis.”

Accordingly, Iraqi forces have “only acted to fulfill our constitutional duty to extend the federal authority and impose security and protect the national wealth in this city, which we want to remain a city of peaceful coexistence for all Iraqis”.

The statement of the Iraqi Prime Minister added; “We pledge to our people to continue to defend their rights, their gains and their national wealth from waste and corruption. It is the property of all Iraqis, and we must live in this nation without discrimination.”