Maliki discharge 14 Kurdish senior officers from Iraqi army

April 29, 2013 – Ministry of Peshmerga, witebej.com – BAGHDAD:  By a direct order from the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, discharge of 14 Kurdish senior officers from them positions in the “4, 5, 12” division of the Iraqi army and sent to the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad.

A senior source in the Iraqi army announced to the Kurdish NRT TV channel that after leaving of the terrorist groups (Sulaiman Bek) and entry of the Iraqi army to district, and according to this source, Ali Ghaidan commander of Iraqi ground forces and Abd al-Amir al-Zaidi chief of Tigris operations command they had ordered was sent directly by Al-Maliki to the Iraqi Ministry of defense to discharge the Kurdish officers within the Iraqi army in the region. “

The source pointed out that, according to this order, the 14 of brigades and regiments commander and all of them Kurds in the “4, 5, 12” Division of the Iraqi army has been removed from them position and sent to Baghdad without mention any position to them.And this source linking discharge of the Kurdish officers to the recent events in Hawija and Sulaiman Bek and Qara Tepa, and declared that “al-Maliki does not trust the Kurdish officers in the Iraqi army in those areas.”

On April 23, Iraqi PM Maliki temporarily replaces two Kurd ministers. Maliki has named temporary replacements for the country’s foreign and trade ministers, both of whom are Kurds, a senior government official said.Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani is to temporarily replace Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, (an ethnic Kurd) while Justice Minister Hassan al-Shammari is to take charge from Trade Minister Khayrullah Hassan Babaker, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Kurdish ministers have been boycotting cabinet meetings since early March over disagreements about the federal budget. The autonomous Kurdistan region and the federal government in Baghdad are at odds over issues including a swathe of disputed territory in north Iraq, oil contracts the region has signed without Baghdad’s approval, and power-sharing. The federal government regards all oil deals that did not go through the national oil ministry as illegal, while Kurdistan says that Baghdad has failed to pay money owed to foreign oil firms operating in the region.