ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — All political parties in the Kurdistan Region agreed to run together on Monday in upcoming provincial elections in the disputed Kirkuk province. The parties want people to register to vote following the formation of the new alliance, they said in a statement they read at a press conference in Kirkuk on Monday. "All the parties decided to run in the upcoming provincial elections of Kirkuk on a joint list named ‘Kirkuk is Kurdistani,’” read a statement from the Kurdish parties in Kirkuk on Monday. "We are calling on the Kuridstanians in Kirkuk to visit the voter registration offices.” The joint electoral list’s name “Kirkuk is Kurdistani” reflects their belief that the contested area is an integral part of the Kurdish nation. The provincial elections are scheduled for April 1, 2020 in Kirkuk and other disputed territories between Erbil and Baghdad. Though the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) did not attend today's meeting in Kirkuk, Rawand Mala Mahmood, the deputy head of the second-largest Kurdish party the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) office in Kirkuk, said theKDP also agreed to form the electoral list. "They spoke with the KDP by phone and they also agreed to run for the elections in Kirkuk. The joint list will include them as well,” said Mahmood to the press conference. The KDP is the only Kurdish political party that has not returned to Kirkuk since Iraqi forces retook the city from the Kurdish Peshmerga in 2017 following the Kurdistan independence referendum. The KDP also did not contest May 12 Iraqi parliamentary elections in Kirkuk, calling the city “occupied and sold out” due to the presence of Iraqi forces. Today's agreement between the political parties in Kirkuk comes after the PUK sent a letter to Kurdish parties on Thursday asking them to prepare the mechanisms through which they could run together as one list in the upcoming elections. Kirkuk is one of the disputed territories between the federal government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq. Kirkuk has a mix of Kurdish, Arab, Turkmen, and Christian inhabitants. Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein forcibly moved people to and from Kirkuk and the surrounding areas during his reign, further exacerbating tensions. Kirkuk hasn’t had a provincial council elections since 2005, mainly due to its disputed nature and disagreements between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen in the province. In 2005, out of 41 provincial council seats, Kurds were able to win 26 seats when they ran on the joint Kurdistan Brotherhood List that included some Turkmen parties as well. The Kurdish parties called for peace between the different ethnic and religious groups in the city with their announcement. "The Kurdish parties are stressing the need for peaceful co-existence among all the components of the city," the statement read
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