ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—Kurdish members of the Iraqi parliament, who left Baghdad last week after protestors stormed the parliament house, say they will return to the Iraqi capital only after “Kurdish leadership’s clear decision” in regard to the Iraqi government.
Lawmaker Muthana Amin told Rudaw Thursday that the MPs also needed “clear guarantees” from the Iraqi authorities before they can resume their work in Baghdad.
Angry protesters in the Iraqi capital attacked several lawmakers last week after staging a sit-in protest inside the parliament building.
“The government needs to formally apologize and punish those who attacked the MPs,” Amin said and accused supporters of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for the incident on April 30.
“We do not accept that some thirty MPs encouraging their supports to attack the parliament and humiliate other lawmakers and impose their will on the rest of us,” Amin said referring to the Sadr’s Ahrar bloc that has 34 of parliament’s 328 seats.
Earlier on Thursday Iraq’s embattled Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi called on all MPs including the Kurds to return to Baghdad. Abadi said the government had formed a committee to investigate the incident and prosecute the violators.
Shiite cleric, Muqtada Sadr has warned the protests will continue until the government undertakes “genuine reforms against corruption.”
Sadr has demanded that the entire Abadi-cabinet to be replaced by non-partisan and so-called technocratic members.
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