Iraq to close Baghdad-Kirkuk road for 2 days to run new power lines: Official

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – An official from the disputed Iraqi province of Kirkuk announced that the highly-traveled road connecting Baghdad and Kirkuk will be closed for two days so engineers can run new power lines.

The action will effectively cut transportation between the nation's capital and the entire Kurdistan Region, located to the north and east of Kirkuk.

Yalghen Mehdi Habib, the director of an office that manages electricity distribution in the province, said in a statement that the location of the closure will be where the road passes through the town of Tuz Khurmatu (Khurmatu), 20 km south of Kirkuk.

He did not specify which days that the road would be out of service, but implied it would be very soon, with the goal of "delivering the new line of Kirkuk - Mansouriya 400 KV - to support the national network of transmission lines and solve a problem in voltage stability."

Habib added that, in efforts to avoid local areas being completely cut off from their electrical supply while the work was being done, an existing power line "was temporarily diverted to an alternative route with the continuation of the technical work at a rate of only four hours per day, beginning eight o'clock in the morning."