ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Mohammed Samaan Agha from the Iraqi Turkmen Front (ITF) resumed his duties as Kirkuk governor on Monday, despite the conclusion of his post in the disputed city and a transition to state minister in Baghdad following his new appointment just four days earlier.
Samaan was voted in by the parliament on Thursday as state minister for minority affairs, completing the appointment of remaining cabinet officials in the current Iraqi government. Samaan posted photos online showing himself receiving visitors inside the governor’s office.
He was originally selected as governor of the ethnically diverse, disputed Kirkuk province in April. He had been expected to serve until December before handing the post over to a nominee from two Arab factions under a 2024 power-sharing agreement between those factions, the ITF, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Samaan told Rudaw’s Shko Omar in August that he would “relinquish his position and ensure a smooth power transfer” upon the conclusion of his term as part of a power-sharing rotation. Agha’s appointment, which marked the first Turkmen governor of Kirkuk in over a century, followed a prolonged political deadlock within the 16-seat provincial council, where competing factions struggled to form a local government.
"Whenever our duties are completed, we will hand it over democratically and easily,” he pledged at the time.
Under that arrangement, PUK’s Rebwar Taha held the position for two years before passing it to Samaan. The ITF is scheduled to step down and hand the governorship to the Arab factions in January.
Samaan’s new appointment to the ministerial post in Baghdad requires him to step down from the Kirkuk governorship, a source from the city’s provincial council told Rudaw English on Sunday, adding that the post must be run by Taha, in his capacity as the deputy governor, in accordance with “legal measures.”
The ITF is yet to agree on a candidate. Ahmad Ramzi, one of the two ITF members from the provincial council, said Sunday “it is definitely the Turkmen’s share,” while noting that their faction has not selected a candidate for the position.
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