ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani is set to officially declare the full unification of Kurdistan Region’s Peshmerga forces under the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs during a ceremony on Monday.
The transition formally integrates more than 100,000 party-affiliated Peshmerga fighters into a unified military hierarchy, fulfilling a long-sought security reform backed by the US-led international coalition.
President Barzani, serving as Commander-in-Chief of Armed Forces, will host the official ceremony alongside Prime Minister Masrour Barzani, Peshmerga Minister Shorsh Ismail, and senior diplomats from coalition partner nations, a source within the Kurdistan presidency told Rudaw on Monday.
Under the overhauled structure, the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) Unit 80 and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) Unit 70 will operate as Area Command 1 and Area Command 2, respectively, Bakhtiyar Mohammed, Secretary-General of the ministry, told Rudaw’s Solin Hamadameen.
“Their only headquarters will be the ministry. They will not be affiliated with any party,” he added.
Mohammed explained that the new structure helps bolster administrative, financial, and command and control dimensions of the force.
President Barzani signed a decree in February formalizing the authority of Regional Command 1 and Regional Command 2, under which the partisan forces were to be reorganized into 10 divisions. Prime Minister Barzani subsequently issued an executive order conferring legal authority and budgetary responsibilities on the commands.
KRG has for long sought to unify its various military units into a single, professional, and depoliticized national force. This initiative has received strong backing from international partners, especially the US and its allies from the Global Coalition to defeat Islamic State (ISIS).
Between 2010 and 2013, approximately 42,000 fighters from the two units were merged into 14 brigades. However, progress stalled amid internal political disputes and the outbreak of war against ISIS in 2014.
Following the withdrawal of Kurdish Peshmerga forces from disputed territories in October 2017 in face of an Iraqi security forces offensive, many of these brigades broke apart.
In 2018, the process was revived through a 35-point reform plan developed with coalition partners. The first phase of the unification started in 2022, and the final phase concluded on September 10 of this year per a statement from minister Ismael.
"Today, with great pride, we announce historic news and a major achievement that has long been a dream of our people: the process of unifying and reorganizing all Peshmerga forces under the umbrella of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs has been successfully completed," Ismail said in a statement shared by the ministry on Facebook at the time.
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