ERBIL – Leaders of the Kurdistan Region’s two most powerful political parties appeared together on Thursday to pledge they would create a new strategic agreement to face up to the current challenges confronting the region and Iraq. It was the third time in less than a week that Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish Regional government and vice-president, had met Mala Bakhtiar, head of the political bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). Political analysts saw the occasion as the latest attempt by the leaderships of two long-time rivals to put an end to a mounting campaign of mutual accusations and back-biting that was proving politically destabilising. At Barzani’s side at a press conference in Erbil, the KRG capital and a KDP stronghold, Bakhtiar said the two parties would also work together to solve outstanding disputes between the KRG and the Iraqi government in Baghdad. The two men were at a meeting of Kurdish political leaders on Monday that agreed on which ministers they would send to join the new Iraqi cabinet, breaking weeks of deadlock over Kurdish participation in the national government. These ministers left for Baghdad on Thursday for the cabinet’s swearing-in. Barzani said a joint KDP-PUK delegation would go to the Iraqi capital once the ministers were in place. Barzani and Bakhtiar also appeared together on Sunday, in Suleimani in the PUK heartland, to announce efforts to give assistance to fellow Kurds in the Syrian town of Kobane who are fighting to head off an assault by Islamic State fighters. Barzani said there would be joint meetings between leaders of the KDP and PUK to create a fresh alliance. Under an earlier strategic agreement adopted in 2005, the two parties established a coalition that amounted to a power-sharing deal to govern the KRG. But tensions between the old rivals – they fought a civil war in the mid-1990s – have never been far below the surface. The latest round led to mutual accusations between unnamed spokespeople of both parties in the local press, and even Facebook campaigns among rival supporters. The squabbles stemmed from differences over nominating a candidate for the Iraqi presidency, relations with the outgoing Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Al-Maliki, and over how to accommodate the Gorran (Change) movement that edged ahead of the PUK in elections last year and which each party contested in its own right. Bakhtiar said his party and the KDP intended to include Gorran in future trilateral political meetings. The PUK has suffered internal splits since its founder and patriarch, Jalal Talabani, the former Iraqi national president was incapacitated by a stroke in late-2012. Issues to be addressed, if the parties can shelve their differences, would include adopting a unified command for Peshmerga forces, which are currently divided along KDP-PUK lines. Gorran has no military presence. Some analysts were sceptical about whether the apparent KDP-PUK rapprochement would lead to a real improvement in the relationship. “It’s a good thing because there are a lot of issues between the parties,” one Kurdish analyst said. “But there are always people in both parties who won’t follow what’s been decided.”
Culture22-06-2026Sulaimani ‘capital of Kurdish culture’ unveils 2nd annual Kurdish Mobile Film Festival
