By Ahmed Qassim

NINEVEH, Iraq

Kurdish Peshmerga forces on Tuesday began to withdraw from Makhmur district, southeast of Mosul in northern Iraq, according to a Kurdish officer.

“Kurdish forces are moving their heavy equipment toward Erbil,” Capt. Taher Saadullah al-Duski told Anadolu Agency.

Iraq says in full control of Kirkuk oil fields

He said Iraqi government forces had not yet entered the district.

Saadullah, however, did not give a reason for the Kurdish pullout from the area.

Kurdish officer Sirwan Khalil, for his part, said Peshmerga forces had pulled out from the village of Kanhash in the historic city Nimrud, southeast of Mosul."

Kurdish forces seized control of disputed areas in the provinces of Kirkuk, Nineveh, Diyala and Saladin when the Daesh terrorist group swept through northern Iraq in 2014 and the army collapsed.

On Monday, Iraqi forces seized full control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk amid tension between Baghdad and Erbil over last month’s illegitimate referendum on Kurdish independence.