ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A high-level Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) delegation arrived in Baghdad on Friday to meet with Iraqi parties, a PUK MP confirmed to Rudaw, stating that a meeting with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) delegation is “possible.”
Headed by the co-chair of the PUK Bafel Talabani, the delegation is expected to convene with several Iraqi parties to advocate for their party’s nominee for presidency, the current president Barham Salih, a day before the county’s parliament is set to vote on a new president of the republic.
Earlier in the week on Wednesday, a KDP delegation headed by Fazel Mirani, secretary of the KDP political bureau, arrived in Iraq’s capital for similar purposes.
“Everything is possible, and we haven’t closed the door for negotiations,” the PUK MP Sabah Habib said regarding the prospect of his party’s delegation meeting with the KDP delegation in Baghdad.
The PUK and the KDP have been at loggerheads over who should become the next President of Iraq. Backed by their allies in the tripartite alliance - the Sadrist Movement and the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance - the KDP has declared their nominee to be current Kurdistan Region Minister of Interior Reber Ahmed, who will be competing against the PUK’s Salih.
The Iraqi parliament is set to elect the president on Saturday, over five months after October’s early elections and over six weeks after the legislature was postponed in early February. Concerns regarding the session not being able to meet the legal quorum have been raised, as the Coordination Framework intends on boycotting the parliamentary meeting.
Despite not having announced an official alliance, the PUK and the Coordination Framework have both opposed the tripartite’s attempts to form a national majority government, requesting a government based on national consensus instead.
On Friday morning, the leader of the Sadrist Movement Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr urged the parliament’s independent MPs to attend Saturday’s session and to at least abstain from the vote, rather than not attend. “It is shameful for Iraq and its people to be left without a government,” Sadr said.
By Chenar Chalak
