With oil the source of regional disputes, the semiautonomous Kurdish government in northern Iraq said it was backing off its ambitions for independence. The Kurdistan Regional Government said in statements published Wednesday that greater Iraq and the self-governed Kurdish provinces were faced with “grave and dangerous” circumstances that followed a contentious referendum for Kurdish independence. The referendum coincided more or less with the liberation of Mosul and other key areas of northern Iraq from the terrorist group calling itself the Islamic State , known variably as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh. Liberation prompted a reconstruction effort by the Iraqi government. After tensions escalated in the wake of the referendum, Iraqi forces in early October wrestled control over oil fields in the disputed […]