ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has condemned the violence that targeted the offices of some Kurdish parties, and staff of two Kurdistan-based media outlets. He said that the Kurdistan Region in about to enter a new era that requires unity, not divisions.
“A divided house cannot survive,” PM Barzani said.
While condemning the violence, he described the Sunday night attacks as “illegitimate and illegal”. He said those responsible should be prosecuted according to the laws of the Kurdistan Region.
The waves of the violence that affected the Kurdish capital of Erbil and Duhok, both strongholds of PM Barzani’s ruling party, followed the resignation of the Kurdish President Masoud Barzani.
Angry protesters, some of whom were armed civilians, torched the offices of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and Gorran or Change Movement in Zakho, near Duhok. Security forces stated Sunday night that they arrested at least 5 people in connection with the attacks.
NRT, a Sulaimani-based TV station, stated that their staff were attacked by people with sticks at the Kurdish parliament in Erbil. The parliament held a session to distribute the powers of the resigning President Masoud Barzani to other Kurdish institutions, including to the office of PM Barzani.
Barzani’s party, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the Kurdistan Regional Government, among others, condemned the attacks.
“I condemn these [acts] of violence,” PM Barzani said in a statement published on his personal Facebook account.
“There is no place for this violence,” in the Kurdistan Region, PM Barzani said. “It is illegitimate and illegal."
“Solving our current problems are not easy. But this kind of violence and the division that took place last night is in the interest of our enemies.”
He said there are people both at home and outside the Kurdistan Region who want to “divide us.”
The premiere said that there is “a new road” ahead of the people of Kurdistan that needs the unity of the Kurdish people. Barzani is tasked with heading Kurdistan's talks with Baghdad after his government offered to freeze the outcome of the Kurdish vote in return for starting an open dialogue with Baghdad on the basis of the Iraqi constitution.
“A divided house cannot survive. We do not need division. We must not allow for us to enter domestic rivalry, or to allow for this rivalry to bring us down,” he said.
The attacks in particular were triggered by a Kurdish MP, Rabun Maroof, who was wrongly accused of insulting the Peshmerga. He described the Kurdish Peshmerga as heroes and brave, but called the commanders as failing to defend and who always “flee” when battles begins.
Maroof told Rudaw following the storm of the parliament that the whole incident was a misunderstanding.
Maroof, who used to be a Gorran MP, was speaking to media outside the parliament about the Peshmerga, criticizing events in Kirkuk. “Kirkuk was a symbol of failure,” he said. The forces are heroic, but the commanders “they always flee.”
A group of men interrupted him and accused him of insulting the Kurdish forces and the president. He was pushed back from the microphones and into the parliament building.
An angry crowd then gathered outside the parliament, telling Rudaw they were there to demand an apology from Maroof. Some could be seen carrying sticks.
Speaking to Rudaw inside the parliament, Maroof said it was a slip of the tongue. When he was being pushed, he had called President Barzani a “donkey.”
This was a mistake, he said, “I think I am not the kind of person or at a level to use such a word. That is why I hope people who have got this wrong know that I respect them.”
He said he would never use “unpleasant words” against the Peshmerga.
The violence, however, took place as the Kurdish Peshmerga lost the oil-rich Kirkuk province on October 16, as well as many disputed or Kurdistan areas claimed by both Erbil and Baghdad.
The KDP accused some elements of the PUK for the loss of Kirkuk. One PUK commander called the move a “tactical withdrawal.”
Speaking to the Kurdish nation, President Barzani said on Sunday night that he never expected that the people of Kurdistan would be stabbed in the back, and a “high treason” would be committed in Kirkuk. He said if it were not for an act of treason, the course of events would have been different.
The PUK stated on October 24 that they opened an internal investigation into what went wrong on October 16 in the oil-rich province.
It said a regional plot, supported by the silence of friendly nations, coupled with the rejection of the US-backed alternative to the Kurdistan referendum, resulted in a catastrophe for the Kurdish nation in Kirkuk and elsewhere.
This “regional plot” was partly successful due to “exploitation of disagreements between Kurdistani parties and the struggle within the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan,” a PUK statement read then.
