KHANAQIN, Kurdistan Region – Anti-Kurdish threats and violence in Iraq’s disputed Diyala province, which is claimed by both the Arab central government and the autonomous Kurdistan Region in the north, have forced Kurdish political parties there to set aside rivalries and work closely together, officials say.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (KDP) are ruling partners in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). But while they are united in the common goal of administering the enclave, which gained autonomy following the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, they also bicker over rivalries and differences.
Not so in the eastern Diyala province, residents and party officials say, which is inhabited by Sunnis, Shiite Muslims and Kurds, and has long been a center of volatile hub of violence and attacks.
“You know how life is for the Kurdish residents here?” asked Ali Karim, a resident of the provincial town of Khanaqin. “People are killed, threatened, and shot over their Kurdish identity here. The PUK and KDP cannot preoccupy the Kurds here over minor disputes between themselves,” he explained.
Residents and officials say that relations among the Kurdish parties are generally better in the disputed territories, some of which are extremely rich in energy reserves, including Diyala.
“We hold a monthly meeting with the KDP, and so far we have not had any problems with them,” said Abdulkhaliq Gharib, who heads the PUK office in the ethnically-mixed Diyala district of Saadiya, and is a member of the party’s office in nearby Khanaqin.
“The problems of the people of this area are so great that the parties cannot be preoccupied with their own conflicts,” Gharib added.
More than 2,000 families have fled the anti-Kurdish violence in Diyala districts, and many people have been killed. The violence is mainly blamed on extremist groups loyal to the Baath party of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
Party differences usually revolve around government positions, with each side accusing the other of looking out only for its own supporters. With local elections due later this month in much of Iraq, the competition also extends to the April 20 polls.
But residents and officials say that even these rivalries are absent in Diyala.
“My party and KDP have different candidates in the elections, but we will all compete under the same banner,” said Gharib. “In some areas we will campaign together for the candidates of both parties,” he added.
Both parties are running election campaigns for their candidates in Diyala, but “they do not vilify each other’s candidates,” said Muhammed Hassan, a resident of Khanaqin.
Sheikh Jaafar Mustafa, head of the KDP office in Khanaqin, said that party disputes were not made public, and were resolved internally.
“There are rivalries in the elections in the area, but not between the PUK and KDP. It’s between the Kurds and Arabs,” Mustafa said. “If we focus on campaigning against each other then we are doing the Arab coalitions a favor.”
The government posts in the region are not equally distributed between the two parties: The deputy governor of Diyala is from the KDP, which also has two other minor offices in Khanaqin. The rest of the offices are run by PUK officials.
This would be a potential point of rivalry, but Mustafa brushes it aside, saying the distribution does make sense.
“This is not a problem, because the PUK has a larger number of supporters in this area,” he said.
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