The Arab Spring

The district of Altun Kupri, or Perde in Kurdish, lies on the road between the city of Kirkuk - which fell to Iraqi forces on Monday - and Erbil, capital of the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq that voted in a referendum last month to secede from Iraq against Baghdad's wishes.

A force made up of U.S-trained Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service units, Iranian-backed Popular Mobilisation and Federal Police began their advance on Altun Kupri at 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT), said an Iraqi military spokesman.

"Details will be communicated later," the spokesman said in a short posting on social media.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces withdrew from the town of Altun Kupri, located on the Zab river, after battling the advancing Iraqi troops with machine guns, mortars and rocket propelled grenades, security sources said.

It was not immediately clear whether there had been any casualties in the fighting.

The Iraqi forces have advanced into Kirkuk province largely unopposed as most Peshmerga forces withdrew without a fight.

The fighting at Altun Kupri marked only the second instance of significant violent resistance by the Kurds in Kirkuk province since Monday.

Altun Kopri marks the admnistrative limit between Kirkuk and Erbil. It belongs administratively to the Kirkuk province.

Iraqi forces are seeking to reestablish Baghdad's authority over territory captured by the Kurdish Peshmerga outside the official boundaries of the Kurdistan region in the course of the war on Islamic State militants.

The Peshmerga had moved into Kirkuk after the Iraqi army fled the region in the face of Islamic State's advance in 2014. The Kurdish move prevented Kirkuk's oilfields from falling into the hands of the militants.

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu boasted of the achievement in state news agency RIA Novosti on Tuesday night, saying Russia had liberated "500,000 square kilometers" from Islamists since its campaign in Syria began in 2015.

But that figure is almost three times Syria’s official size, according to United Nations data, a point that non-state-run news outlets in Russia were quick to point out.

Liberal and independent news outlets such as radio stations Echo of Moscow and Radio Free Europe picked up on the apparent gaffe, as well as some of Russia's more popular news sites such as Lenta. In neighboring Ukraine, the comments caused much ridicule as state-run Ukrinform was among the first to point out the error, while the Kiev-based UNIAN news agency declared: "Shoigu has embarassed himself."

The comments overshadowed some of the more plausible statistics Shoigu announced during an international meeting in the Philippines, including that 998 Syrian towns have been recovered from militant groups since Russia intervened in the Syrian conflict.

“The largest part of the fighters has been eliminated,” Shoigu said, claiming that ISIS now held no more than 5 percent of the country’s territory. “The process of restoring peaceful life...has begun.”

While Moscow has denied reports of causing any collateral damage or civilian deaths over the two-year bombardment, independent reports have suggested that during some months, Russia has in fact spilled more civilian blood than even ISIS.

Some of the most serious allegations against the Russian campaign include the hit on humanitarian facilities such as a Médecins Sans Frontières–supported hospital in February.

Moscow began its campaign predominantly bombing parts of Syria where ISIS had no large presences, and has not elaborated on which extremist organizations appear on the "list" it is targeting, besides ISIS and a local Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as the al-Nusra Front.

In August, Reuters estimated that the number of Russian deaths in Syria was more than three times its official figure of 12 at the time.

Although support for the operation has faded at home, Russia’s intervention has successfully emboldened the once-embattled Assad regime, provided testing ground for new Russian military kit and made Moscow a necessary diplomatic destination for regional leaders to visit.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the 24-hour halt as his troops faced off with Kurdish fighters on the second day of a drive to capture the vital oil export point of Fishkhabur on the Turkish frontier.

The freeze should help de-escalate fighting after the two sides — both armed and trained by the US — exchanged heavy artillery fire in the latest flare-up of a crisis sparked by a Kurdish independence vote last month.

But Abadi kept the pressure on the Kurds by saying that the day-long pause was aimed at allowing a joint committee involving officials from Baghdad and the autonomous region "to work on deploying federal forces in all of the disputed zones".

Iraqi forces on Thursday mounted a new assault on Kurdish fighters in the strategic Zummar area of Nineveh province, tightening the screws after seizing swathes of territory in a lightning advance since mid-October.

After claiming the capture of several villages, fighting died down earlier Friday as a government source told AFP that Baghdad had given the Kurds an ultimatum to withdraw from the area around Fishkhabur "within several hours".

To the south, an AFP photographer reported that Iraqi troops had meanwhile retaken the Rabia border post with Syria from the Kurds.

The Kurds insist they have managed to repulse the latest Iraqi advances and have given no indication of being willing to abandon crucial Fishkabur, where rival pipelines belonging to both sides cross into Turkey.

There have been fears the bitter dispute between the Baghdad government and Iraqi Kurdish leaders would hamper the battle against IS, with the UN calling for talks on Thursday.

A Kurdish official said the US-led coalition that has backed both the Kurds and the Iraqi forces in the fight against the jihadists had pushed them towards negotiations.

The bloodless advance by Iraqi forces has seen them reclaim the entire oil-rich province of Kirkuk, stripping the Kurds of a major chunk of their oil revenues and dealing a crippling blow to their hopes of independence.

The latest push on Fishkhabur risked taking them into territory inside the three core provinces that make up the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The area where the borders of Iraq, Turkey and Syria converge is also a key economic hub for US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria, with Iraq alleging it is used to smuggle out fuel.

Baghdad insists it has the right under Iraq's constitution to control the border and aims to revive a defunct pipeline that runs from the oilfields of Kirkuk to the area of the border crossing to the Turkish port of Ceyhan.

The Kremlin strongman's first visit to Iran since 2015 comes as Moscow seeks to turn its game-changing military intervention in Syria into a concerted push to bring a halt to fighting in the country with the help of Tehran, President Bashar al-Assad's other key backer.

"We are working very productively with Iran and we manage to coordinate our positions on Syria," Putin said after talks with Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani and the Islamic republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Russian leader insisted that thanks to a joint push with rebel supporter Turkey, "the situation on the ground in the fight against terrorism and the negotiating process are developing very positively".

Khamenei said the "good cooperation between Tehran and Moscow in Syria shows that the two countries can realise their objectives even in difficult terrain", and insisted that all solutions to the conflict come "from inside the country".

Russia, Iran and Turkey pledged after a latest round of negotiations in Kazakhstan on Tuesday to bring the Syrian regime and its opponents together for a "congress" to push peace efforts in the Russian city of Sochi on November 18.

The three key players have organised a series of peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana this year, agreeing on the establishment of "de-escalation" zones in various parts of the war-torn country.

Rosneft eyes major projects

State oil giant Rosneft and the National Iranian Oil Company signed a roadmap agreement with an eye to developing joint projects worth up to $30 billion, Rosneft head Igor Sechin was quoting as saying by Russian news agencies.

Sechin said the two sides were looking to seal binding deals within a year to work on a "whole series of fields, oil and gas", and that eventual output could total 55 million tonnes of oil a year.

The potentially mammoth deal would boost Rosneft's push in the Middle East and aid the Kremlin's ambitions of bolstering its influence in Iran and the broader region.

Moscow and Tehran have had close political and economic relations, and in the nuclear field Russia has already built one reactor at Iran's Bushehr plant and just started work on two new ones.

Syria peace push

The military might of Moscow and Tehran in Syria has helped prop up Assad's forces and turn the protracted conflict in his favour with a string of key battlefield victories.

Since the start of the year, Russia has looked to cement the gains from its intervention by spearheading the peace push at talks in Kazakhstan, positioning itself as a broker between key players Iran and Turkey and largely bypassing the West.

Up until now the focus has been on quelling the violence on the ground and the three powers have established four "de-escalation zones" around rebel-held territory in the country.

The zones were initially credited for bringing about a significant reduction in bloodshed, but international aid groups say they are currently failing to curb the fighting.

Now Moscow seems keen on expanding its peace drive in search of a political settlement.

The push on Syria comes as ties between both countries and Washington have frayed still further since Trump moved into the White House in January.

Despite initial opposition, Trump in August signed off on a sanctions bill targeting Russia, Iran and North Korea after it was passed overwhelmingly by Congress.

Putin's arrival came a day after the US Treasury added 40 Iranian individuals and entities already targeted by sanctions to a counter-terrorism blacklist.