KDP, PUK come to agreement over Kurd region gov’t

By Idris Okuducu

SULAYMANIYAH, Iraq (AA) - Two leading Kurdish political parties on Friday appear to have reached agreement over the outlines of the next Kurdish regional government.

On Friday, leading members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) met in Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

At a joint press conference held after the meeting, KDP spokesman Mahmoud Mohamed said the two parties had settled a number of their longstanding differences.

“We came to agreement on several issues, including the outlines of the next regional government and Kirkuk,” he said.

Iraq’s oil-rich Kirkuk province has long been the subject of dispute between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish region.

Mohamed did not elaborate further regarding his party’s apparent agreement with the PUK.

The Erbil-based KDP and the Sulaymaniyah-based PUK dominated Kurdish parliamentary polls last September, winning 45 and 21 percent of the vote respectively.

Since then, however, the two parties have failed to agree on the outlines of the Kurdish region’s next government.

In late 2017, federal forces moved into several parts of Iraq disputed between Baghdad and the Kurdish region, including Kirkuk.

The deployments followed an illegitimate referendum on Kurdish regional independence that had been widely condemned by many states of the region.