ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader Bafel Talabani said on Monday that he suspects meddling "hands" of being responsible for the heightening disputes between his party and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in recent times, in an exclusive interview with Rudaw’s Shaho Amin.
The Kurdistan Region’s two main ruling parties, the KDP and the PUK, have for decades disagreed over a variety of issues, sometimes leading to major unrests in the Region. Disputes in Erbil and Baghdad have escalated in recent years over official positions, budgeting, and income.
“I feel like there is a lack of understanding between us and the friends at KDP. At first, I suspected a hand being behind it. I still believe there is a hand behind it,” said Talabani, without alluding to anyone in particular.
Talabani claimed that he was searching for “a cure” to his party’s pending issues with the KDP, calling the situation between the two parties “wrong”, and describing the current governing system in the Kurdistan Region as “a dual administration.”
Despite working together in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), the two parties have established control over different parts of the Region, often being referred to as the “Yellow Zones and Green Zones. “ The KDP is dominant in Erbil and Duhok provinces, while the PUK rules Sulaimani and Halabja provinces.
The PUK has accused the KRG of favoring Erbil and providing fewer funds for Sulaimani. Both parties have accused one another of handing over only part of the local income to the KRG.
Talabani claimed that it is unreasonable to expect Sulaimani’s income to be as high as Erbil’s, saying that Sulaimani only has border trades with Iran, while Erbil has border trades with Iran, Turkey, and to some extent Syria.
“We have not asked for no-centralization. We have not asked for dual administration,” said the PUK leader, calling on both parties to hand over their earnings from the provinces they command into a shared fund.
In April, the KDP claimed that around 40 percent of Sulaimani’s income was missing on a monthly basis.
Kurdistan Region has been suffering from a financial crisis for nearly a decade due to the Islamic State (ISIS) attack in 2014, the suspension of its budget from Baghdad, dramatic drop of oil prices and the spread of the coronavirus. Civil servants were not paid in full and on time.
Talabani also decried the lack of understanding reached between the KDP and the PUK over the Kurdistan Region parliament’s elections law and the electoral commission, accusing the KDP of not wanting the parliamentary elections to be conducted.
“We need to amend the parliament’s elections law. The KDP does not want to do the elections… Let us draft a tidy law, find a solution so that minorities can represent themselves, and we [PUK] will hold the elections tomorrow.”
Members of the Kurdistan Region parliament in October voted by a majority to extend the current four-year term of the legislature by one year, in a session boycotted by the opposition blocs, deeming the proposed bill “illegal”.
A new parliamentary election was set to be held on October 1, but disagreements between the blocs over the current elections law and the electoral commission prevented the process from being conducted on its scheduled time.
In addition to the problems at home, tensions between the KDP and the PUK were also high in Baghdad, with the parties failing to compromise on a single candidate for Iraq’s presidency for over a year. Disputes continued even following the election of the president, as the parties disagreed over who should fill the ministerial positions in the Iraqi cabinet
The PUK leader attributed the disagreements between the parties in Baghdad to a lack of willingness to communicate.
“I want us to sit down, reach an agreement, for our politburos to hold a meeting, but they are not doing it… How can we reach an agreement like this?”
Abdul Latif Rashid was voted president of Iraq in October following a year of political deadlock after the parliamentary elections. Rashid then tasked Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani with forming the country’s next cabinet. The KDP and the PUK were allies in the Running the State Coalition which played a big role in bringing the political impasse to an end.
