ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Amid ongoing talks to form a new cabinet of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has suggested that they mend ties with the Change Movement (Gorran) which deteriorated after Iraq's elections on May 12 through the revival of an agreement both parties signed in 2016.
“The main aim is to review relations between Gorran and the PUK and remove all the obstructions in the way of developing relations between the two sides," Farid Asasard, a PUK Leadership Council member, told Rudaw.
Gorran rejected the results of the 2018 elections in which the PUK won the majority of seats in Sulaimani province as “fraud” and the vote as rigged.
Relations between the two former allies soured after PUK forces allegedly opened fire on Gorran’s main headquarters.
A Gorran official said that an agreement signed between the leaders of Gorran and PUK three years ago should be honored.
The Change Movement had in the past rejected numerous calls from the PUK for reconciliation calling on the party to turn in the May 12 night's attackers.
Now that government talks are ongoing, the PUK wants to see relations have normalized and the Dabashan agreement revamped, thus preparing a project to normalize its ties with Gorran on the basis of the landmark agreement."For us, the Dabashan agreement is very sacred,” Hemin Sheikhani, member of the Gorran National Assembly, told Rudaw. “Because it was signed between two charismatic leaders Nawshirwan Mustafa and Mam Jalal.”
In 2016 Gorran leader Nawshirwan Mustafa and PUK Secretary General Jalal Talabani signed the "Dabashan" agreement that aimed at unifying the agendas of both parties and reducing tensions that had risen over the post of the governor of Sulaimani.
“If the people of Kurdistan read it carefully they will understand that the points in it [the agreement] are in their interest,” Sheikhani said. “So whenever this agreement is implemented we will welcome it."
The Gorran National Assembly officially announced last year that the PUK did not commit to the agreement.
Both leaders died in 2017.