ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Peshmerga fighters will henceforth be subjected to ministerial chain of commands, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said Monday in a ceremony to announce the unification of the Kurdish force, confirming the end of partisan interference in the Region’s Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs (MoPA) after 35 years of its establishment.
“The Peshmerga must remain above party competition, because they are not the force of a political party; they are the force of Kurdistan,” President Barzani stated.
Addressing Peshmerga fighters, he stressed, “When you put on the Peshmerga uniform, you are the Peshmerga of Kurdistan.”
He further added that "the Peshmerga is not a partisan force, but rather a Kurdistani force that belongs to no political party. With this step, no force will remain outside the administration of the Ministry of Peshmerga Affairs."
Peshmerga forces were organized in a proto-defense defense ministry at the end of 2021, but, after the establishment of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in 1992, Kurdish authorities passed laws to regulate the Peshmerga under the MoPA.
However, MoPA has long been divided across partisan lines between the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), with the former’s Unit 80 and latter’s Unit 70 comprising around 100,000 fighters whose payroll as well as affiliation remained outside the MoPA’s jurisdiction.
Between 2010 to 2013, the unification process had succeeded in dragging roughly 42,000 Peshmerga fighters under the MoPA command, but the process was impeded due to political disputes and the outbreak of the war against the Islamic State (ISIS).
Subsequently, Peshmerga reform efforts were restarted in 2018 following the end of the main combat phase of the war against ISIS. The US-led global coalition subsequently embarked on a plan aimed at reforming command and control, professionalizing payroll and logistics, and unifying units 70 and 80.
The first phase of the unification started in 2022 following the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the US Department of War, and the final phase concluded on September 10. Monday's ceremony coincided with the expiry of the MoU.
Speaking at the Monday’s ceremony, KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani noted that Peshmerga forces have become “unified in terms of operations, training, command and control, media, and accounting.”
While acknowledging party affiliation for the Peshmerga forces as a “legitimate right,” the KRG premier emphasized that “national and Kurdistani allegiance must serve as the standard for the Peshmerga” and that the fighters “must adhere to the decisions of their superiors according to the military hierarchy and chain of command.”
President Barzani signed a decree in February formalizing the authority of Regional Command 1 and Regional Command 2, under which the partisan forces were to be reorganized into 11 divisions. Prime Minister Barzani subsequently issued an executive order conferring legal authority and budgetary responsibilities on the commands.
Meanwhile, Shorsh Ismail, the Peshmerga minister, said in Monday’s event that the process is the result of the strong will of the Region’s leadership, stressing that the Peshmerga is a "national asset" for Kurdistan.
He also said the Peshmerga will be under a central command rather than being controlled by political parties.
Furthermore, both President Barzani and Prime Minister Barzani affirmed that MoPA is a part of Iraq’s defense forces.
“The unified Peshmerga force is part of federal Iraq’s defense system, with stronger coordination serving the security of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq as a whole,” President Barzani stated.
Also, the KRG Prime Minister emphasized “the importance and necessity of strengthening security and military cooperation and coordination between the Peshmerga forces and the Iraqi army to further protect Iraq's stability,” while demanding that “their salaries and financial entitlements are unified with their counterparts in the Iraqi army, and that they enjoy equal rights.”
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