Iraqi Turkmen Front

Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held a meeting with Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) head Hasan Turan in the capital Ankara on Jan. 2.

Fidan and Turan were accompanied by their respective delegations for the meeting, a photo the ministry released on X showed.

Turkey has condemned the bomb attacks on ethnic Turkmens in the northern Iraqi province of Kirkuk.

Iraqi government forces captured the major Kurdish-held oil city of Kirkuk on Monday, responding to a Kurdish referendum on independence with a bold lightning strike that transforms the balance of power in the country, Reuters.

Police deployed overnight in the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk to prevent any outbreak of ethnic violence ahead of an independence referendum strongly opposed by the Baghdad government, local residents said.

Iraqi Turkmen political parties have reiterated their opposition to an upcoming referendum on Kurdish regional independence, calling on supporters to boycott the Sept. 25 poll.

Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) leader Masoud Barzani will push for a Sept. 25 statehood referendum for the autonomous region in northern Iraq until the last minute, but may withdraw from the move if Baghdad and Washington meet its demands, a Turkmen leader has said. 

Members of the Kirkuk Provincial Council voted on March 28 in favor of raising the KRG flag over official buildings during a meeting that was boycotted by Turkmen and Arabs.

On April 1, the Iraqi parliament in a session voted against the decision of the Kirkuk Provincial Council.

Turkey will not accept any attempt to declare independence in northern Iraq and to incorporate Kirkuk into the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım has said, vowing they will continue to stand with Iraqi Turkmen groups. 

A city council in the Iraqi city of Kirkuk has approved raising the Kurdistan Regional Government's (KRG) flag over official buildings, receiving protests from Turkmen and Arab members of the council. 

Both Turkey and the United Nations had expressed their concerns over such a move.  

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), is working on a "secret plan" to rid the Syrian-Turkish border of Turkmens, said Ershad Salihi, a leading figure of the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) during an interview with Hürriyet.