Car bomb explosion east of Baghdad, Iranian military killed

Adviser of Iraqi Interior Minister, Wahhab al-Taiee, said in a brief statement that an explosion of a car bomb took place near industry club, east of Baghdad, Sunday morning, without any losses.

While security sources confirmed that the explosion left two people wounded, adding police immediately cordoned off the scene.

A car bomb exploded Saturday evening near cement factory west of Karbala province. According to IRNA, one of the Iranian military killed by a raid of US aircraft on the Iraqi-Syrian border.

According to the agency, the military, named Mustafa Khosh Mohammadi, retired from the 45th Brigade of the "Nineveh" of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the province of Kulstan in the north of the country.

Regarding referendum of the Kurdistan region, Washington began a public move to pressure Kurdistan authorities to postpone the referendum, scheduled for September 25, by phone call of US Secretary of State Rex Tilerson with President of the province Massoud Barzani.

Kirkuk said Sunday it is represented by a delegation from Kurdistan Region to Baghdad which will discuss the region’s independence from Iraq.

"The delegation visiting Baghdad represents all the people of Kurdistan, of which Kirkuk is a part. Whoever visits Baghdad from that delegation represents us." Kirkuk governor Najmuddin Karim told reporters on Sunday.

"The people of Kirkuk welcome the September 25th referendum and will actively take part in it," the governor said.

A delegation from Kurdistan’s council supervising the anticipated secession referendum is slated for a visit to Baghdad on Monday to discuss the step opposed by the Iraqi government and most of the political elite.

Baghdad and Erbil have disputed sovereignty over oil-rich Kirkuk. Local authorities in the province had stirred political tensions with Baghdad in March when they decided to raise Kurdistan’s flag alongside Iraqi ones. Kurdistan had slated the non-binding independence poll for September 25th, and has, ever since, stressed it was not backtracking on the plan.

For his part, MP from the "Democratic Party of Kurdistan", Renas Jano, the “new Arab”, that Tilerson’s contact with the President of the Kurdistan region was not to discuss the referendum only, but the referendum was among the themes discussed by the two men.

“It is likely that Baghdad will be the one that asked the American side to intervene to put pressure on Barzani to postpone the date of the referendum,” he said, adding that “this does not mean that the region has no opinion on that."

He stressed that "Washington and all parties have not shown their opposition to the referendum and the subject of the right of self-determination of the Kurds, but the opposition is only about timing," noting that "the presidency of the region believes that this timing is very appropriate."

 He pointed out that "Barzani did not make any promises to Talerson on the postponement of the date or not, and we are waiting for the Kurdish delegation, which will visit Baghdad in a few days, and will discuss the subject with a number of other outstanding topics."

This development precedes the visit of the Kurdish delegation to Baghdad, which “carries in its package a lot of outstanding issues between the two parties, which are waiting for solutions from the government of Baghdad, the most important file of the referendum,” according to the MP, “the Kurdistan Alliance,” Abdul Qadir Mohammed, “the Arab the new”.

According to Mohammed, "of the other outstanding issues to be discussed by the delegation in Baghdad, the disputed areas, which set a time limit, but the Baghdad government exceeded the ceiling has not resolved the file so far, and the file of Arab settlers sent by the federal government to the Kurdish areas, and the need to compensate the federal government for them To return to their areas, and compensation of displaced Kurds, which is also limited by a time limit, but the government did not implement any paragraph of them.

He added that among those files also file what he called "land seized by the federal government in the villages and Kurdish areas, and return the land to their owners," stressing that "all these files are stuck between the parties, and there are a number of differences on them, and the Government of Baghdad is slowing down And put obstacles in the face of their implementation, trying to pass the time to win the dispute in their favor, “stressing that” we did not find any response by the Government of Baghdad to resolve all these files."

He pointed out that "these files are subject to discussion, and as a result if Baghdad wants to reach a solution, it is in its own hand, it must take the steps of a genuine democracy for the solution," adding: "We did not see any seriousness by the government of Abadi to resolve these files, and we are optimistic about resolving."