Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers stand guard in front of machine guns during a deployment in the outskirts of Kirkuk, some 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad, March 5, 2011. Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region has rejected demands from the central government in Baghdad to remove Kurdish troops surrounding the northern oil city of Kirkuk, officials said on Friday. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed (IRAQ - Tags: MILITARY POLITICS)