QUBAD TALABANI MEETS WITH QANDIL PKK LEADERS / THE PUK IS A DECOMPOSED CORPSE

PUK uses PKK to win votes in upcoming election

16.04.2014 – Shwan Barzinji –  BasNews, Kirkuk –  The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has asked its supporters to vote for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in the upcoming elections in Iraq and the Kurdistan Region.

Heval Jumhat, the PKK speaker, told BasNews that his party would not issue a public statement on the matter of voting in the Iraqi elections. However, BasNews learnt from sources inside the PUK’s media branch that the PKK has asked its supporters in Kirkuk to vote for Najmaddin Kerim, the PUK candidate in the provincial election. On April 9, 2014, Arez Abdullah, the head of PUK Candidates List, and Qubad Talabani, the son of the Iraqi President, met with PKK officials in the Qandil Mountains to ask the PKK for their support.

In the meeting, Arez Abdullah told PKK officials that the PUK had performed badly in the last parliamentary election in the Kurdistan Region, and this was the reason why no Kurdish government had been formed. In addition, Abdullah criticized the Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) political views regarding Syrian Kurdistan. Sardar Star from the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party (PCDK), a wing of the PKK based in the Kurdistan Region, told BasNews that despite Abdullah’s comments, the next election was not a priority for the PKK. However, he added that in the next few days, the PCDK would hold a meeting to discuss the Iraqi elections and decide on which party to vote for in the Kurdistan Region.

The PUK, which lost in the last Kurdistan Region elections, is eager to form close ties with the PKK to damage KDP relations with Turkey, Syrian Kurds and the PKK. PUK politburo member and head of the administration Mala Bakhtyar recently visited Northern Kurdistan to strengthen ties with the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), a pro-Kurdish party in Turkish Kurdistan, to entice the votes of PKK supporters in the Kurdistan Region. According to the same source, the BDP wants the PUK to support the cantons of Syrian Kurdistan. Political analysts believe that with the PUK allying itself with the PKK and the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria, pressure will be heaped on the KDP to undermine its relations with Turkey, especially regarding the oil issue, in order to win more votes in the election. At the same time, the PUK continues attacking the KDP’s oil policy and their strategy regarding Syrian Kurdistan. On a related note, the annual prize dedicated to Ibrahim Ahmad, the famous Kurdish writer and politician and father of the Iraqi First Lady, Hero Talabani, was granted to Abdullah Öcalan, the jailed leader of the PKK.