Kurdish forces seized two oilfields in northern Iraq and took over operations from a state-run oil company on Friday, while Kurdish politicians formally suspended their participation in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, according to The Associated Press.
The moves escalated a feud between the Shi'ite-led central government and the autonomous Kurdish region driven by a Sunni insurgency which threatens to fragment Iraq along sectarian and ethnic lines three years after the withdrawal of U.S. troops, the AP reported.
The Kurdish forces took over production facilities at the Bai Hassan and Kirkuk oilfields near the city of Kirkuk, the oil ministry in Baghdad said, according to the AP. It called on the Kurds to withdraw immediately to avoid "dire consequences".
Kurdish forces took control of nearby Kirkuk a month ago after Iraqi troops withdrew in the face of a lightning assault by Islamic State militants, who have seized large parts of northern and western Iraq, the AP reported.
The two oilfields have a combined production capacity of 450,000 barrels per day but have not been producing significant volumes since March when Baghdad's Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline was sabotaged, according to the AP.
Kurdish authorities said they had moved to "secure the oilfields of Bai Hassan and the Makhmour area" of the giant Kirkuk oilfield after hearing that the oil ministry planned to disrupt a pipeline designed to pump oil from Makhmour, the AP reported.
Bai Hassan and the Makhmour part of the Kirkuk oilfield had been under the control of the state's North Oil Company, according to the AP.
"The Kurdish Regional Government learned on Thursday that some officials in the federal Ministry of Oil gave orders to a number of NOC staff to cease their cooperation with the KRG and to dismantle or render inoperable the valves on the new pipeline," the Kurdish authorities said in a statement, the AP reported.
The statement said the Bai Hassan field and other fields in the Makhmour district were under Kurdish government management and that NOC staff had been told they should cooperate with Kurdish authorities from Saturday or leave, according to the AP.
