ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) on Saturday reopened its Kirkuk-Garmiyan Organization Office in the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk seven and a half years after it was closed following the Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum.
“Now more than ever, the unity of our Kurdish people is necessary. For all of us to become a catalyst of unity and harmony, we believe that in all issues - both past and present - the constitution should prevail and we must all turn to the constitution,” Hiwa Ahmed, the head of the office, said in a press conference, adding that the KDP has returned to “solve problems” in Kirkuk.
The opening ceremony was attended by a number of high-ranking KDP officials, including politburo secretary Fazel Mirani and Shakhawan Abdullah, second deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament.
“We have not come to Kirkuk, rather we have always been in Kirkuk and will remain in Kirkuk, because even if we were physically absent for some time, the organization and Kurdish resolve… has always had roots in Kirkuk and will remain, growing day by day,” Mirani said during the opening ceremony.
The KDP shut down its offices in Kirkuk after Iraqi forces and the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi) regained control of the province in October 2017 and expelled Kurdish Peshmerga and security forces. Three of the KDP’s offices were taken over by Iraqi forces, including its leadership council located on the main Kirkuk-Erbil road.
Shokhan Hasib, a KDP member of the Kirkuk Provincial Council, told Rudaw on Friday that the party’s return to the disputed city was delayed because “the previous headquarters was not suitable for our party’s activities.”
“Therefore, we later tried to find another location for reopening the headquarters, and this process required a lot of time,” Hasib said.
The new office is located in Kirkuk’s Arafa neighborhood.
In October 2023, the KDP donated its Kirkuk headquarters to the city’s university. The decision was made at a party meeting chaired by leader Masoud Barzani and after the building was the center of deadly protests.
Tensions escalated in Kirkuk in September 2023 when Arab and Turkmen demonstrators opposed to the KDP’s return staged a sit-in near the headquarters of the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command, which was located in the former KDP headquarters before it was donated to the university.
When Kirkuk’s Kurds staged a counter-protest, Iraqi security forces opened fire, killing four Kurdish protesters and injuring 15 others.
Kirkuk is a multiethnic city home to Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen, as well as an Assyrian minority. The city was under joint administration before 2014, when Kurds took full control after Iraqi forces withdrew when the Islamic State (ISIS) group threatened the city.
Kurds held Kirkuk until October 16, 2017, when Iraqi forces retook control and expelled Kurdish security forces following the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) independence referendum. While other Kurdish political parties remained active in Kirkuk, the KDP refused to return, saying the city was “occupied” by Shiite militias.
