KDP donates Kirkuk headquarters to university

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) on Thursday decided to donate its Kirkuk headquarters to the city’s university, a move welcomed by the federal government. The building was the center of a deadly protest this summer.

“The government welcomes the initiative by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) to donate its party headquarters in Kirkuk … to Kirkuk University,” read a statement from Iraqi government spokesperson Basem al-Awadi.

Awadi said that the “wise initiative” was appreciated by Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani who highlighted the government’s desire for security, coexistence, and brotherhood in Kirkuk. 

The decision was made during a meeting of the KDP’s central committee, led by party leader Masoud Barzani. The headquarters will be given to Kirkuk University “as a gift to the city’s students, the education process and culture in the city,” read a statement issued after the meeting. 

The KDP said their goal was to preserve the “spirit of unity and stability” in the city. 

Tensions escalated in the disputed city of Kirkuk on September 2 when Arab and Turkmen demonstrators staged a sit-in near the headquarters of the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command, which is housed in the former headquarters of the KDP, located on the main Kirkuk-Erbil road. Protesters were angry that Sudani had reportedly ordered Iraqi forces to evacuate the headquarters and two other buildings to allow the Erbil-based KDP to return to its offices ahead of provincial elections scheduled for later this year.

When Kirkuk’s Kurds staged a counter-protest, Iraqi security forces opened fire and killed at least four Kurdish protesters and injured 15 others. 

An Iraqi court issued an order to temporarily suspend implementation of Sudani’s order to return the offices to the KDP.

The KDP left Kirkuk in October 2017 when a joint Iraqi army and Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF, or Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic) evicted Kurdish forces from Kirkuk and regained control of the province following the Kurdistan Region’s independence referendum.

After the deadly protest, Iraq’s governing coalition agreed to send a “leadership committee” to meet with official and social activists in Kirkuk to seek a solution. Kirkuk is home to Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen and relations between the groups are frequently tense in the oil-rich province.

Human Rights Watch in September, called on Baghdad to reveal the findings of their investigation into the killings of the four Kurdish protesters and to hold the perpetrators accountable. The monitor urged Sudani to “be independent and impartial” in the “investigation of allegations of excessive use of deadly force by Iraqi security forces.”