ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Ending a months’-long boycott, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) team headed by Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani will attend the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) cabinet meeting on Sunday, a party spokesperson said on Saturday. Sameer Hawrami, Talabani’s spokesperson, posted a picture of the PUK team on social media and said, “PUK team headed by Qubad Talabani will attend the meeting of the council of ministers on Sunday.” Talabani, who is a senior PUK member, and his team began boycotting the meetings late last year due to tensions with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). On Monday, Prime Minister Barzani and Talabani met for the first time in over six months and agreed to settle their issues through dialogue and cooperation. They are under pressure to reconcile ahead of elections scheduled for November. In March, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani declared November 18 as the date for parliamentary elections, a year after their originally scheduled date. The postponement was due to disagreements between political blocs over the electoral law and the electoral commission. The PUK wants to revise the current election law, which it says is unfair with Sulaimani province not given enough seats proportional to its population. The allocation of seats for minorities is also a point of dispute. Despite being allies in the KRG, the KDP and PUK are frequent rivals. They have been at loggerheads over parliamentary elections, transparency of oil and local income of the provinces under their influence, and the assassination of a former PUK colonel in Erbil in October.
