ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - President Masoud Barzani indirectly rejected reports suggesting potential restrictions on the Kurdish Peshmerga’s arms under Iraqi state control, amid a broader push by Baghdad to bring paramilitary groups and their weapons under state authority.
“For some time now, due to the particular political situation that has emerged, some parties have been speaking about the Peshmerga’s arms and presenting incorrect interpretations and false opinions on the matter,” the prominent Kurdish leader said in a late Wednesday statement on X.
“It is necessary for everyone to remember that the Peshmerga was born from the blood, suffering, and tears of the people of Kurdistan,” he added, affirming that the Kurdish forces’ “weapons are not merely pieces of iron, ammunition, or tools of war.”
“The Peshmerga’s weapons represent history, sacrifice, dignity, and belief. They are the devotion and commitment that the Peshmerga always holds toward its people, land, and homeland,” the head of the Kurdistan Region’s ruling party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), asserted.
Earlier in the day, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi ordered the formation of a committee to oversee the implementation of measures aimed at disengaging political parties and armed factions from the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) and restricting their arms to state control.
The move is in line with the Iraqi constitution and existing laws, a statement from Zaidi’s office read, noting that it aims to “strengthen state authority, support security and stability, and reinforce the establishment of a strong Iraqi state capable of fulfilling the aspirations of its citizens.”
The PMF was established in 2014 during the Islamic State group (ISIS) blitz, which saw the group seize control of large parts of Iraq’s north and west.
Created in response to a religious edict, fatwa, by Iraq’s highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the PMF was initially an umbrella organization of roughly 70 predominantly Shiite armed groups, with approximately 250,000 members.
While it is a state‑funded institution, the PMF notably includes factions widely believed to overlap with the Iran-led ‘Axis of Resistance,’ which have, since the outbreak of the Iran war in late February, carried out attacks against alleged US targets in the region in support of Tehran, often operating through shadow groups under the banner of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI).
As for the Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga forces, Rudaw learned on Sunday that they have not been informed of any plan to integrate them into Iraq’s federal security apparatus.
Bakhtiyar Mohammed, secretary-general of the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) Peshmerga ministry, affirmed that “if such a proposal is raised, the parliament and the government must first be informed so that legal reviews can be conducted and legal experts consulted. This issue should be addressed through law, not through discussions and meetings,” he said.
He further stressed that the Region’s Peshmerga ministry - equivalent to a regional defense ministry - oversees the Kurdish forces, which are “an official and legitimate force that has also been recognized by the Iraqi parliament.”
