ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) on Tuesday demolished its main office in Baghdad, effectively suspending its activities in the Iraqi capital after mobs of supporters of pro-Iran parties and militia groups attacked and burnt the office earlier.
The KDP dismantled its branch 5 office in Baghdad and announced that the party would be halting all their civil and political activities in the city.
The decision to knock down the office comes in response to the government’s lack of regard towards the attacks on the office, according to an official from the party.
“Due to the fact that the KDP is an ethnic and main party in Kurdistan and stands up to chauvinists, they previously attacked one of our zones in Jamila in 2014… starting from last year, they began attacking the headquarters and set it on fire, which is the second time it has happened,” Ismael Saya Amir, executive member of KDP’s office in Baghdad told Rudaw’s Halkawt Aziz on Tuesday.
Hundreds of angry vigilantes from pro-Iran parties and militia groups on Monday set the office on fire after a former KDP parliamentary candidate, known as Nayif Kurdistani, made remarks criticizing the top Shiite authority in Iraq, known as marja in Arabic.
The KDP immediately condemned the controversial tweet, stating that the former candidate “has no relationship or affiliation” with the party while expressing its respect to all religious authorities.
Kurdistani apologized to the Shiite marja, claiming his Twitter account was hijacked. He was later arrested by the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) interior ministry.
“The person who disrespected the Shiite marja is in no way a KDP member, but the supporters, without knowing who that person is, attacked us and set fire to the headquarters and ruined everything. We are demolishing this headquarters in response to that erroneous reaction so that the whole world knows,” explained Saya, as there have been no investigations by the Iraqi government or security forces regarding this matter following either of the attacks.
The KDP office in Baghdad was first attacked in October 2020, as criticism from KDP’s senior politburo member, Hoshyar Zebari, against the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) led hundreds of the force’s supporters to storm the KDP's office.
The attack on the main Kurdish party’s office comes at a tense time as Iraq is seeing political turmoil with parties failing to form a government at least six months after millions of Iraqis voted in an early election to end the deeply rooted endemic corruption and to put an end to the failure of successive governments in providing basic services to the Iraqi people.
