Kurdistan
PUK senior official Mala Bakhtiar speaking to Rudaw's Rozhan Abubakir on May 28, 2022. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Disputes between the Kurdish political parties puts the Kurdistan Region in a “dangerous” position, a senior official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) told Rudaw on Saturday, adding that the decision from Iraq’s top court against the constitutionality of the Region’s oil and gas law is just the “groundwork” for further threats from Baghdad.
Mala Bakhtiar, member of the PUK’s Supreme Political Council, stated that he predicts a “dangerous” future for the Region unless the Kurdish political parties reach a new strategic and joint program to resolve their disputes in both Erbil and Baghdad.
“It’s been seven months since Iraq’s elections. Kurds have gone to Baghdad with four different agendas… We are a nation that is still not fully accepted by its surroundings, that’s first. Second, a group of critics and anti-Kurdistan Region individuals have surfaced. They are pressuring us. For years, they’ve been cutting our budget. They’re not implementing the oil and gas law. They’re not implementing a budget system. They’re not arming the Peshmerga,” Bakhtiar told Rudaw's Rozhan Abubakir on Saturday.
Iraq held parliamentary elections in October, but the political parties have failed to elect a president and prime minister for the country due to political disputes. The PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) have fielded different candidates for the largely-ceremonial position of the presidency.
Discussing the Kurdistan Region during a meeting of the UN Security Council earlier this month, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq’s (UNAMI) Special Representative Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert noted that "divisions have deepened - with adverse effects on the people of the Kurdistan Region," and that little had changed in what she had previously called “the toxicity of political infighting and factionalism.”
Bakhtiar said that if the Region does not heed the “warnings” from Hennis-Plasschaert, dangerous repercussions will follow, adding that the Iraqi federal government has already exploited these divisions to pose a “clear” threat to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
“The threats are clear… The oil minister is saying that the Kurdistan Region has not handed us any oil. This is laying down the groundwork… Other decisions from the same court against the Kurdistan Region are coming… We must be afraid. We are in danger!” Bakhtiar said.
Tensions between Erbil and Baghdad have escalated in the past few months after the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court ruled in February that the KRG’s oil and gas law was “unconstitutional,” striking down the legal basis for the independence of the Region’s oil and gas sector. The decision was swiftly rejected by the KRG who deemed the judgment to be “unjust” and “unconstitutional”.
The PUK official stated that even if the Kurdish parties were to resolve their disagreements, that wouldn’t mean an end to the political deadlock in Iraq as disputes among the Shiites themselves and their disputes with the Sunnis will remain and prevent the government formation.
In addition to the Kurdish parties’ clash over the presidency, disagreements within the Shiite house are also a major obstacle for the formation of Iraq’s next government. The pro-Iran Coordination Framework insists on the formation of the government based on political consensus, while the Sadrist movement opposes this idea, calling for a national majority government alongside their allies in the Save the Homeland Alliance: the KDP, and the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance.
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