Iraq: Kurdish official rejects notion of 2 governments

By Haydar Hadi

SULAYMANIYAH (AA) - No one in northern Iraq’s Kurdish region wants two competing seats of government, Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said Tuesday.

After meeting with members of the Kurdish Movement for Change (Gorran) party in the city of Sulaymaniyah, Barzani told reporters that a KRG delegation would soon visit Baghdad to discuss the current political situation in northern Iraq with Iraqi officials.

At his meeting with Gorran party officials, Barzani reportedly discussed proposals for drawing up a transitional KRG government and plans to hold regional presidential and parliamentary polls.

In response to rumors that a second Kurdish regional government -- to be led by Gorran and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) -- would be set up in Sulaymaniyah, Barzani said: “All parties in the Kurdish region are opposed to the notion of two separate seats of political leadership.”

Iraq’s northern Kurdish region has remained in the throes of political turmoil since late September, when the Erbil-based KRG held an illegitimate referendum on regional independence.

In the weeks after the poll, Iraqi government forces moved into several parts of the country “disputed” between Baghdad and the KRG, including the oil-rich Kirkuk province.