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Iraq’s two major Kurdish parties have been trying to reach a compromise between the two, but to no avail.
 

Supporters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party celebrate with the KDP party flags during Iraq’s parliamentary election in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, Oct. 10, 2021. – Safin Hamed/AFP via Getty Images

Mustafa Saadoun
@SaadoonMustafa

www.al-monitor.com

August 11, 2022

The UN secretary-general’s envoy to Iraq visited Aug. 10 the city of Erbil, capital of the Kurdistan Region, to attend a meeting of the leaders of the Kurdish political blocs, in the presence of President of Iraqi Kurdistan Nechirvan Barzani.
The visit was upon Barzani’s invitation and amid deepening divisions between the two major parties in the Kurdistan Region.
The attendees’ statement after the meeting read, “Nechirvan Barzani expressed his hope that the political parties would reach an understanding on setting a date for holding the elections and resolving the problems.”
According to the statement, the president said, “The delay in the elections harms the Kurdistan Region’s reputation and prestige.”
The differences between the two main parties — the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which represent the two most prominent Kurdish families, the Barzani and Talabani families — are not something new.
Decades of conflict between the two sides culminated in an armed conflict in the 1990s. Today, the conflict is essentially a political struggle over influence in state institutions and representation in the Baghdad-based Iraqi central government.
Furthermore, Iraqi Kurdistan is witnessing frequent protests every once a while, most recently early this week in Erbil, Dahuk and Sulaimaniyah against both parties, mostly against the KDP that has more power share in the region, demanding for salaries that were delayed for months and other services and citizen rights.
After the Iraqi parliamentary elections in October 2021, however, the dispute between the two flared over the Kurdish presidential candidate, and has exacerbated further with the parliamentary elections in the Kurdistan Region fast approaching.
Over the past 10 months, a series of meetings and talks have taken place, but to no avail — until the most recent meeting that brought together Aug. 4 KDP leader Massoud Barzani and PUK leader Bafel Talabani, during which there was somewhat of a breakthrough.
Prominent KDP official Bankin Rekani told Al-Monitor, “The Kurdish parties are on the verge of putting an end to the differences and reaching positive results.”
He said, “The meeting that brought Barzani together with Bafel Talabani was the basis to ending the disputes. The two sides appear both ready to agree on the disputed files, and this will become clear soon.”
The two parties are vying for the post of the president of Iraq, which has been allocated to the Kurds in Iraq, as per tradition since 2003.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, however, lent its support to the PUK candidate, Barham Salih, which deepened the crisis between the two parties, pushing each side to dig in their heels.
Disputes between the two parties are not limited to the federal government positions only; they also revolve around governance issues in the Kurdistan Region, how to deal with political developments and the opposition expansion, oil and gas investments and the division of resources between the major governorates of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah, with the latter being financially marginalized prompting protesters to demonstrate against the dire situation every now and then.
The PUK, which controls Sulaimaniyah, fears the KDP’s attempt to expand its influence over all areas.
According to Rizan Sheikh Diler, the PUK’s political adviser, does not agree with Rekani’s statements about an imminent agreement between the two sides, stressing that the recent meeting between the two leaders did not bring anything new to the table.
“The meetings are futile. Both sides are insisting on their decisions, and each has its own independent government. The only victims here are the governorates in Kurdistan that are affected by these ongoing differences,” she told Al-Monitor. “The crisis is likely to exacerbate in Kurdistan, especially with the upcoming legislative elections in the region slated for October.”
Up until 2018, the Kurds would run for the parliamentary elections under the same alliance called the “Kurdistan Alliance”; then they were on separate tickets.
In the 2021 parliamentary elections, the Kurds joined opposition lists; Barzani joined forces with the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, and Talabani joined the Shiite Coordination Framework, which is close to Iran.
“The recent meeting in Erbil Aug. 10 in the presence of the UN envoy did not have any positive outcome,” another Kurdish well-informed source told Al-Monitor on condition of anynomity.
Bilal Wahab, researcher at the Washington Institute, said in an article Aug. 1, “Washington has failed to use its remarkable influence with the two Kurdish parties, which includes providing direct annual aid of $240 million.”
The tense situation in Baghdad and the major parties’ failure to reach understandings with some calling to dissolve parliament and hold early elections undoubtedly affects the situation in Iraqi Kurdistan, especially since the two Kurdish parties have joined two opposing alliances in the capital.

Read more: https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2022/08/kurdish-leaders-meet-iraqi-political-deadlock-continues#ixzz7bnfyNX00

Issued on: 12/08/2022 – 19:23 – France24.com

Security forces deployed in Sulaimaniyah in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region on August 6, 2022. © Shwan Mohammed, AFP

Text by:Marc DAOU

Iraqi Kurdistan, the autonomous zone considered a haven of stability in a war-torn country, has been roiled in recent days by political tensions. A violent crackdown on an anti-government protest last weekend and the arrest of parliamentarians from an opposition party have sparked alarm bells in the region.

The northern Iraqi autonomous zone of Kurdistan appears to be catching up with the chaos and political stability that has gripped Iraq since the October 2021 parliamentary elections.
On Saturday, August 6, security forces in Kurdistan fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets to disperse anti-government protests in Sulaimaniyah. The opposition New Generation party had called for protests in Sulaimaniyah and other cities in the autonomous region to demand better living conditions and for regional elections to be held on the scheduled date.
Six New Generation lawmakers in the federal parliament in Baghdad as well as a local member of the regional parliament were arrested before being released hours later. Forty New Generation members were among the nearly 600 people arrested that day, according to the opposition party.
In addition, “at least 60 journalists were targeted by the police” during the demonstrations, according to the NGO, Reporters Without Borders. Of the 26 journalists arrested, “at least 10 were journalists from the NRT TV station, which is owned by Shaswar Abdulwahid, a businessman and founder of the New Generation party.
US, France express ‘concern’
The crackdown underscored the tensions in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which has been dominated by the rival Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
The autonomous region’s Western allies were quick to condemn Saturday’s violence. On August 8, the US embassy in Baghdad expressed its “concern” over the use of violence by the security forces and urged local authorities to “review these actions and reaffirm the vital roles that a free press, peaceful assembly, and the rule of law play in a democracy”.

This concern was shared by several EU nations, including France, which called on the KRG “to uphold public freedoms” in a statement issued on August 7 by its consulate general in Erbil.
In recent years, Kurdistan local authorities have been singled out by several international rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, for human rights violations.
“The main Western partners of Kurdistan were very quick to condemn the weekend’s events because, since 2003, and until recently, the KRG embodied in their eyes an alternative model of stability in relation to the powers that be in the region,” said Adel Bakawan, founder and director of the Paris-based French Centre for Research on Iraq (CFRI). “Its main strength, if not the only one, is this image, cultivated for decades, of a land of cultural and political diversity, very symbolically consecrated by Pope Francis’ March 2021 visit to Erbil.”
Tensions on national, international levels
The crackdown comes at a disquieting time in Iraq and the Kurdish autonomous region, said Bakawan.
“It must be noted that there is a certain nervousness within the KRG, which can be explained by several factors. These include the international context, which has been disrupted by the economic and geopolitical fallout of the war in Ukraine, as well as political chaos in Iraq, which can, at any time, tip into civil war and directly threaten the security and stability of Kurdistan,” he explained.
Bakawan believes that a resurgence of the Islamic State (IS) group also poses a threat to the autonomous Kurdish territory. In addition, recent Turkish attacks on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) – which Turkey and its allies consider a terrorist group – have caused many civilian casualties in northern Iraq.
“The KRG, which is also under pressure due to tensions with Baghdad over the management of Kurdistan’s oil wealth, seems to favour the security approach to deal with a number of issues and maintain security and stability in the territory. This is to the detriment of dialogue and interaction,” he said.
Two historical parties, two powerful clans
In addition to the international and national contexts, the Kurdish territory is also shaken by internal political rivalries. “We must keep in mind the highly political nature of the events of August 6, which the two camps, the KRG and New Generation, are trying to exploit,” said Bakawan.
He explained that around the time New Generation leader Abdulwahid issued a call for protests, in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, supporters of influential Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr were staging a sit-in outside parliament.
Sadr’s supporters have staged the sit-in since July over a political stalemate that followed the October 2021 elections. The Iraqi Shiite cleric was the biggest winner but failed to form a government free of Iranian-backed parties.
He withdrew his lawmakers from parliament and is now preventing the chamber from electing a new government. Sadr is instead demanding early elections.
Abdulwahid’s call for protests in Kurdistan’s cities were not widely followed by the Kurdish population since the demonstrations were mainly composed of New Generation supporters and elected officials, explained Bakawan. “Even if the mobilisation against corruption and living conditions are totally legitimate, the New Generation approach was considered demagogic and political by those among the populace who totally reject the entire political class and no longer believe their discourse,” he explained.
The New Generation Movement’s attempt to position itself as an alternative to the current power perplexes experts such as Bakawan. “It is led by a wealthy businessman considered a part of the system, without a clearly defined ideological line: is it an Iraqi nationalist party? A Kurdish movement? Is it liberal? It is not clear. For example, Shaswar Abdulwahid strongly supports the Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, while resolutely opposing Sadr’s Kurdish ally, the KDP,” said Bakawan.
The party, which was founded in 2018, won nine of the 64 seats allocated to the Kurds in the Iraqi national parliament in the October elections.
In Kurdistan, it is competing and trying to challenge the domination of the two main parties, which are led by rival political families.
The KDP was founded in 1946 by the late Mustafa Barzani and is currently led by his son, Massoud Barzani. The PUK was co-founded by the late Jalal Talabani in 1975 and is currently led by his son, Bafel Talabani.
The KRG is led by KDP deputy chief, President Nechirvan Barzani, who is the nephew of Massoud Barzani and grandson of party founder Mustafa Barzani.
The Barzani clan powerbase is in northern Kurdistan while the Talabani family dominates southern Kurdistan.
“It is especially in the south, in the Talabani stronghold, that New Generation has wrested the vast majority of its nine parliamentary seats, a significant figure since the PUK won only 18 seats,” explained Bakawan.
This tough political tug of war between the PUK – which is well established historically, financially, militarily and administratively – and New Generation, which does not have the same resources, is reflected in tensions on the ground.

From a purely political point of view, the August 6 crackdown suggests that the authorities are very wary of New Generation ahead of the upcoming regional legislative elections. The poll was scheduled for early October, but has been postponed to a later date.
The postponement of the Kurdish regional elections has been another source of political tensions. On Thursday, UN special representative for Iraq, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, called on all parties to resolve their differences to end the political deadlock, according to media reports. The key issues surrounding the upcoming vote include the composition of the electoral commission as well as calls to amend the region’s decades-old election law.
While a date has not been set for regional elections, Kurdish leaders have said they will be held before the end of the year, said Bakawan.
“The PUK and the KDP, two rivals who see themselves as the builders of Kurdistan and the guarantors of its stability, are certainly afraid of losing part of their electorate to other political forces, even though this scenario seems unlikely, given that the opposition is so divided between different secular, Islamist and liberal currents that it is difficult to bring them together in the same block,” concluded Bakawan.