IRAQI authorities reasserted control yesterday of all areas seized by the Kurdistan regional government (KRG) in 2014.

Troops reoccupied the remaining areas of Nineveh, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din and Diyala provinces after peshmerga forces retreated.

The KRG took over the oil-rich regions in 2014 during the Isis conquest of much of the north, including the city of Mosul.

But its fighters withdrew, offering little or no resistance, when the army took the areas back on Monday.

KRG President Masoud Barzani blamed his forces’ retreat on “certain people in a certain party,” a swipe at his political opponents in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), whom the peshmerga accused on Monday of abandoning positions in collusion with the army.

On Tuesday night, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi claimed the Kurdish region’s recent bid for independence was “a thing of the past.”

Mr Barzani held a highly controversial independence referendum on September 25, including in Kirkuk city and other KRG-occupied areas outside Iraqi Kurdistan itself. The KRG claimed there had been a 92 per cent vote in favour of secession.

Mr Abadi offered to negotiate with Mr Barzani, saying he wanted a  “national partnership, based on the constitution.”

Neighbouring Turkey, Iran and Syria — with often hostile relations with their own Kurdish populations — opposed the referendum.