Rather, both are gaining from this, the second such flare-up in the year since U.S.

The sun-blazoned flag of Kurdistan flies from the turrets of Soviet-built armoured vehicles, seized a decade ago from Saddam Hussein’s army, their barrels now aimed at the unseen forces of Iraq’s national government on the far side of Tuz Khurmato, a town beyond the formal boundary of the Kurds’ autonomous region.įor three weeks, Kurdish “peshmerga” and soldiers of Baghdad’s Arab army, have been reinforcing positions in the “disputed territories”, a long, ill-defined swathe of northern Iraq, rich in oil and communal complexity, where the federal government and Kurdish leaders based in Arbil vie for control.įor all the flag-waving and warnings of war from Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani, few believe either will risk an all-out conflict whose outcome would be uncertain and would disrupt both a flourishing economy in Kurdistan and oil exports that bring Baghdad vital revenues. TUZ KHURMATO, Iraq (Reuters) - A hundred miles from Baghdad, tanks are facing off across a frontline defined not by an international border but by ethnic enmity, fueled by past bloodshed and future oil wealth, that risks tearing Iraq apart.

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