Iraqi PM Rejects Biden's Offer for Deployment of US Troops in Kirkuk

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rejected a proposal by US Vice-President Joe Biden for the deployment of the US forces in Iraq's Northern province of Kirkuk.

Biden in a telephone conversation with Iraqi prime minister Saturday night asked for Maliki's consent to the deployment of the US troops in Kirkuk, but the premier rejected the US vice-president's offer, an informed source told FNA in Baghdad on Sunday. The source, who asked to remain unnamed due to the sensitivity of his information, said during the phone talk, Biden voiced concern about a recent clash between the Pishmerga forces of the Iraqi Kurdistan region - who are the local law enforcement troops of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) - and Iraq's Federal Police troops, and said the US troops should be deployed in the oil rich Kirkuk province in a bid to prevent the outbreak of a civil war. "But the Iraqi Prime Minister strongly rejected Biden's proposal," the source added. Earlier this year in June, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki cancelled a pending visit by the US vice-president to Baghdad, which was aimed at meetings with high-ranking Iraqi officials. "Nuri al-Maliki did not allow US Vice-President Joe Biden to visit Iraq," an informed source in the Iraqi prime minister's information bureau told FNA in Baghdad in June. Earlier reports by a website affiliated to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq said that the cancellation of Biden's visit by Maliki was ordered after it had been revealed that the US vice-president was due to visit the Kurdish city of Erbil.