DOSSIER
Last week demonstrators in several towns in Eastern Sulaimani province, an area traditionally considered a stronghold of Talabani and Goran and where Iran plays an important role, attacked local KDP offices and set several on fire, leaving five people dead and over 140 injured in Kalar and neighbouring areas.
In KRG (and in Suleimani particularly) public staff and government officials didn’t receive their salary since months and now protests in the region are over high unemployment, unpaid salaries and a lack of public services.. Moreover the Turkish and foreign investments collapsed because the whole bank system is stocking, all projects are suspended and suppliers unpaid.
Despite this very critical situation, KRG oil export to Ceyhan is growing but its revenues are used without control and transparency by the KDP elites and nobody knows exactly where this important flow of money goes. This fuels public anger and protests. Gorran outwardly accused the KDP of fighting only for the presidency of the Kurdistan Region and “not the life of people.
The presidency issue must be solved legally and through political efforts in a short time span” the statement read. “The issue has unfortunately been brought into other issues of the region.”
THIS IS THE BEGINNING OF HIDING THE TRUTH OF WHAT IS GOING ON IN AREAS OF KURDISTAN CONTROLLED BY KDP
Instead of negotiating and opening a political confront, Mr. Barzani decided to use an iron fist showing a dictatorial attitude that is very dangerous for the stability of the region: Media offices were closed and to political and institutional representatives of Goran were denied access to the institutional buildings and offices in Erbil, while Asaysh interferes more and more on the political confrontation. On October 10, opposition journos and activists were arrested while Asaysh raided the NRT’s offices in Erbil and Duhok, closed down the offices and deported them through the Degala checkpoint.
“This is the beginning of hiding the truth of what is going on in areas of Kurdistan controlled by KDP”– commented the satellite channel NRT. Fear of media is growing among KDP officials who also decided on Sunday to block access to Facebook and other social media in Erbil and Duhok, to prevent the escalation of the protests in the areas controlled by Mr. Barzani.
On Monday the Kurdistan Parliament’s Speaker Yousif Mohammed was prevented from entering Erbil city at the Pirde checkpoint on the city’s southern outskirts. Meanwhile, also the director of the Peshmerga ministry’s cultural department, Col. Hazhar Mustafa, said he was also prevented from entering his ministry’s building.
THE KDP POLITBURO USED ITS REPRESENTATIVES IN GOVERNMENT AND PARLIAMENT TO INFORM THE SPEAKER AND GORRAN MINISTERIAL TEAM THAT THEY MUST NOT REPORT TO WORK, AND MUST LEAVE OUR REGIONAL CAPITAL
Gorran issued a statement following the Speaker’s Case, saying the KDP was attempting to paralyze Parliament and government institutions.“The KDP Politburo used its representatives in government and Parliament to inform the Speaker and Gorran ministerial team that they must not report to work, and must leave our regional capital,” the statement read.
A member of the KDP leadership, Hemin Hawrami, said in response to Gorran that opposition would no longer be a part of the Kurdistan Regional Government: “Gorran is not committed to the agreement that was done to form a government; it acts against the KRG; it burns political offices. So it is not part of the KRG from now on” he said.
The internal quarries between KDP and Goran, the vacuum of the Presidency and the socio-economic crisis risk to impact on the geopolitical scenario where Barzani is aligned with the Western Alliance and Erdogan, while Goran tends a new re-alignment with the PYD forces and PKK in Turkey.
A divide that weakens also the Peshmerga who have dramatic difficulties to contain ISIS on the South-West fronts and showed all its limits when required to protect the Yazidis villages in the North and the Christians in the Nineveh valley.
This situation paves the way for a new enhanced Iranian role into the regional game. The Tehran regime, who is actively involved in the Syrian campaign and plays a key role in Baghdad, has also a very important reluctant Kurdish minority within its boundaries who actively contributes to the Kurdish resistance in Syria and is a matter of concern for the shi’y regime.
Tehran clearly wants to limit the Israeli-American expansion in Northern Iraq and is looking to attract the Kurdish Syrian North-West Militias as well as the Syriac forces in al-Hasakeh and in the Nineveh Plain (all attracted by Orthodox narratives and the inability of the Alliance to provide weapons and training always given to the Peshmerga) and the Yazidi combat units in the Sinjar mountains.
Within this framework a strong warning was launched by Iran last Sunday, when Al-Alam news channel in one of its headlines called for a division of Kurdistan into two provinces.
As a matter of fact the Russian-Iranian coalition clearly shows a tangible interest to expand its activities into Iraq by exploiting KRG internal contradiction and weakening the US-Israeli main allies while leveraging on its old influence on Baghdad.
