ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Parliament’s presidency invited foreign consuls and diplomatic representatives in Erbil on Thursday to discuss the legislature’s reactivation in a disputed session and safeguarding the Kurdistan Region’s constitutional status.
“In a diplomatic initiative, Dr. Vala Fareed, Speaker of the Kurdistan Parliament, welcomed consuls and representatives of foreign countries,” the Kurdistan Parliament announced in a statement, adding that during the meeting “discussions focused on reactivating the Kurdistan Parliament and emphasized protecting the constitutional and legitimate entity of the Kurdistan Region.”
“The consuls and foreign representatives in the Kurdistan Region commended the move to reactivate the Kurdistan Parliament to advance the democratic process in the region,” the statement added, noting that the diplomats “expressed hope to further strengthen their relations with the Kurdistan Parliament in the future.”
The parliament had remained effectively paralyzed since its inaugural session in December 2024, as the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) failed to reach an agreement on forming the tenth Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) cabinet and distributing senior positions.
While the KDP pushed to reactivate the legislature independently of government formation negotiations, the PUK insisted that an agreement on the distribution of top posts must come first, leaving divisions between the principal political parties unresolved despite Wednesday's attendance providing the numbers necessary to proceed with parliamentary business.
The breakthrough followed a prolonged political deadlock after the October 2024 parliamentary elections, in which the KDP emerged as the largest party with 39 seats, followed by the PUK with 23 and the New Generation Movement with 15.
Fareed stated during the diplomatic meeting that the two-year delay negatively impacted the legal process in the Kurdistan Region and posed a threat to the survival and protection of its constitutional entity.
"We are quite happy that there is a new parliament established, because I think it's good for the people of the Kurdistan … we are hoping that some of the legislative issues, some laws which are pending, will be adopted soon, and that will help us all, specifically for my agency which are fighting against drugs and organized crime," Miroslav Prljevic, a crime and criminal justice officer representing the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told Rudaw’s Payam Sarbast on Thursday.
"Adoption of new laws, amendments, whatever it is needed, will help to increase the security in this part of the world," Prljevic added, noting, "I hope that they will start to work properly."
"We have attended the meeting. It was a very useful meeting. We took … note of all the recent developments. We hope that it would be a very fruitful period," Nikolaos Stergioulas, the Greek consul general in Erbil, told Rudaw on Thursday.
