MESOP BACKGROUND : Kirkuk Governor Calls for Alternative Solution to Province’s Status

29 June 2016 – nrttv – Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim said in a press conference on Monday (June 27) an alternative solution for Kirkuk should be found due to the governorate’s inability to join the Kurdistan Region and current issues with the federal Iraqi government.Karim said during the press conference, “All of my life I have counted Kirkuk as part of Kurdistan and I wish for the administration of the governorate to be in Kurdistan because I know it would be protected.”

The governor said Baghdad had violated the rights of the Kirkuk governorate on several occasions adding the government had given power to eighteen ministries in every governorate of Iraq but the governorate of Kirkuk was not given such authority as provincial elections were not carried out in Kirkuk in 2013. Karim criticized Kurdish MPs in the Iraqi Parliament over the decision to allot funds from budget cuts to Hashid al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization Forces) but not to Peshmerga, who were not mentioned in the decision.

“Kurdish members of parliament passed them over and did not discuss that which concerned Kurdish Peshmerga,” he said. Recently the governor prepared a project to support the independence of the governorate in order for the administration to work more freely. The project aimed to change the governorate to an independent region but the project was rejected by his own political party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. www.mesop.de