ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kirkuk Provincial Council should not convene outside the disputed city and must find a consensus of views between its diverse components, a group of Turkmen parties told a press conference Monday.
“There shall not be any meetings of Kirkuk Provincial Council outside its building in Kirkuk and without the willing of all Kirkuk [religious and ethnic] groups,” the parties told reporters.
Their statement comes after a planned meeting of the provincial council due to be held in Erbil was cancelled on Monday amid an ongoing dispute between the two biggest Kurdish parties.
Meeting at the Turkmen Nationalist Party’s headquarters in Kirkuk, the Turkmen parties insisted the new provincial governor should be a Turkman.
The post of governor has been disputed between Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen since the events of October 2017, when Peshmerga forces left the city in the face of an Iraqi Army and Iranian-backed Hashd al-Shaabi offensive.
The post, currently held by an Arab appointed by the former Iraqi prime minister, has harmed relations between the ruling parties in the Kurdistan Region – Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The PUK insists it is entitled to nominate someone from its ranks while the KDP supports a neutral candidate.
Both parties met on February 5 and struck an initial agreement to “normalize” relations over the oil-rich province and hold Monday’s parliament meeting. However, the PUK boycotted the session, where the parliamentary speaker and her deputies were elected.
“We have given our word to intensify efforts to normalize the situation there [in Kirkuk] however possible,” added Mahmoud Mohammed, spokesperson for the KDP politburo, following the meeting with PUK leaders.
The Turkmen parties also reiterated their demand for a 32 percent share in the province’s management.